Starbucks in Manhattan
by Introvertasaurus
Summary: Who knew I would meet so many famous people while working with my friend at Starbucks? Takes place several months after CAWS. Bucky and Peter Parker will be included. Chapter 12 is posted.
1. Chapter 1

****(IMPORTANT: if you have read my story before, PLEASE READ THIS. I didn't like the way it was going and have changed a few things: the biggest being my main OC's ages and the fact that Reyna's father didn't die, but rather is missing. I also saw my atrocious grammar and fixed it and will try to do better in the future)****

 **Hey all! This is the Introvertasaurus back with, surprise surprise, another Avenger story. *Le gasp* There will be pairings later in the fic, but I will not say who they will be yet. Anyway, this will be introducing two of my OCs: Reyna and Donovan. I, sadly, do not own Marvel or any of its characters, if I did... Age of Ultron would be very different. Enough said. I also do not own Starbucks. I have owned a few coffees from them, but I do not own the company. I do however own Reyna and Donovan, so no stealing! They are my precious!**

 **Later on I will be adding Spider-Man and Deadpool along with several others probably.  
Anywho, ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

(This story is in Reyna's POV)

My story isn't too grand. I was born and raised in a little, but nice apartment complex in Manhattan, New York. My dad went missing when I was five, but, since I didn't know him long, I don't really miss him too much. He's just a mystery to me now; Mom misses him all the time though. She has done a wonderful job taking care of me by herself. They say that no one is perfect, but she is the nearest thing to perfection to me.

I am nineteen with brown eyes and longish, brown hair with teal tips. I am fairly tall, at 5' 10", and lean, well I think I have a good physique though I am sure some would disagree. In case you were wondering I am also a girl. My style consists of almost entirely Converse shoes, witty t-shirts, jeans or jean shorts that stop just above my knees, and lots of bracelets.

Recently I got accepted into an art college nearby. Though I have gotten a few scholarships because of my art, I still needed to make some extra money to pay for the rest of my books and classes. So, here I am, working as Starbucks' new barista. The pay isn't so bad, but everything gets crazy around the morning and coffee break hours. My start was a little rocky, I spilled a frappe on some angry lady's lap and mess up several orders, but I'm starting to get the hang of it around here.  
Oh, I almost forgot! my name is-

"Reyna! One iced, mocha chip latte with cream!" my coworker Donovan yelled to me over the sound of the morning rush. Donovan, or Donny or Dondon or any other nickname that pops into my head at the time, is twenty and goes to the computer side of my college. He was the one that helped me get this job. He is kinda short at 5' 5" and has dark, messy, curly hair and dark, blue eyes. He is the order to my chaos, the Clyde to my Bonny, the Avid to my Costello, the John to my Sherlock, the- you get the idea. He's my best friend and has been for nearly eight years. One of my only friends actually; that's kind of sad now that I think about it. Oh well, that doesn't matter right now as he is about to jump me if I don't fill this order. "Rey! The order!"

"Yeah yeah, coming right up!" I yell back to avoid getting hit with a Cream Danish. Then to ruffle his feathers a little, I say, "Feisty little fellow aren't you, Donatello."  
"Rey," he glares at me over the cash register. He hates being reminded of his vertically challenged problem. As far as I know, I am the only one that can call him short and not get murdered; a fact I pride myself in and extort as much as I can. I smile sweetly at him and make the order, saying, "Yes, sugar plum?"

He smiles and says, "Just make the coffee, _honey bunny."_

I cringe and frown. It has been a long standing silent agreement between us that whenever we are annoyed or angry at each other, we act overly nice. We smile, skip, call each other nicknames, and all around act like a couple dating. It is very scary to the people around us. Although we have already made another agreement long age to never date each other; it would ruin our perfect friendship. Anyway, this time he went too far. I am deathly afraid of rabbits. It started after seeing _'Monty Pythons' Search for the Holy Grail'_ and the bunny scene in it when I was nine. I was scarred for life and have never trusted a rabbit since.

That dumb move deserves retaliation. I will be avenged! I place the finished coffee on the counter and call out the person's name and then walk over to the pastry bins. Donovan likes to keep them organized, straight, and in alphabetical order; it soothes his OCD. I bend down to get a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and switch two sets of bins with each other so that Donny's perfect order is destroyed. It may not seem like much to most people, but we know each other's pet peeves and this will make up for the name calling and then some.

I go back to making another coffee and see Donny reach down for a cake pop, but he comes up with a coffee cake. Ha! Reyrey 1; Dondon 0. Oh, now he is glaring at me. He knows. Not like anyone else could have done it; we are the only ones working here at the time. Now he's making the "I'm watching you" hand gesture after he rearranges the bins back. I give him the "bring it" finger movement with a sly smile.

He matches my smile and winks. Oh no. Nonono. Winking is bad! Winking means he has something planned which is bad! It is very, very bad! If Dondon didn't get the job with me at Starbucks, his other plans were to be an evil mastermind. He would have been better than that Loki guy. He would have actually pulled it off.

Donny's IQ is somewhere in the 200's, just below Tony Stark's, but he is a better hacker than Stark. He has hacked into seven banks, twelve FBI buildings, the pentagon twice, Stark Tower a handful of times, and SHIELD at least once. He has accessed nuclear launch codes, secret military operations, the location of Area 56, the identities of the Avengers and X-Men. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. If he hadn't disconnected from SHIELD's mainframe as soon as he did, I'm not sure what would have happened. Don's dream is to work from his bedroom, hacking into big time companies for money.

So yeah, him winking scares me. A lot.

Then again, he may have just done it to mess with me! But, wait: what if he knew I was going to think that? And what if he knew I knew that he knew I knew he knew? And if he knew I knew that he knew I knew he knew, then he also knows that I know he knows I know he knows I know he knows. And if he knows-  
Hold the phone! His plan has already worked. Dang it! This was just a set up to get my head hurting! I hate it when he does this! He knows I hate it. I know he knows I- Crap! Not again!

I groan and glare at him, holding my head in my hands because of a building headache. He just looks at my all innocent-like and bats his eyes, the little twerp! I'll get him back for this! Right after some Aspirin, my head is killing me now! I hate thinking so hard.

* * *

It is now lull time: the time of day that only a few stragglers come in for their caffeine fix. I have been glaring at Donovan for all of an hour and a half, scaring a few customers, and making him edgy. To keep me away from sharp objects, he has switched places with me so now I woman the cash register. I have named it Hoobert and, while Donny has the hardest time with it, it has never caused me trouble. We have an understanding: I treat it well, keep it clean and have patients with it, and it gets to annoy Donny anytime it wants. Win-win.

Anyways, there is only one person here, Frank our friendly resident caffeine addict. He comes in every day and orders a quad-shot espresso, no cream, low sugar, heavy on the syrup, and then gets out his computer and earbuds starts working on whatever Franks do in their free time (no offence to anyone actually named Frank). I have my theories though. Among them is he lives in a house where his wife does not allow anyone to watch anime, so he comes in here to do so and acts all businesslike to avoid suspicion. Donny thinks he's a spy that's trying to monitor him and his part time occupation (*cough*being a hacker*cough*). I think Don's just paranoid.  
So the place is basically deserted and so I have plenty of time to glare at Don from where I was leaning against Hoobert, while Don pretended to sort through the straws. Said that he was going to find the defective ones; I'm not buying it. Starbucks has regular, mid-sized straws without the bendy part so there is very little that could defect with them, but whatever Donny is doing over there has his total attention. He is avoiding my wrath. Whatever, I'll get him back later, there are customers now.

It is two men. The first is blond haired, blue eyed and is wearing a white t-shirt and khaki pants and the second is dark haired, brown eyed is wearing a black, long sleeved shirt, black, fingerless gloves, and dark denim pants and his longish hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. Both are extremely muscular, without the look of steroids. They look to be in their early twenties and are, as most of the female population of the world would agree, very hot.

Wait a second... I know the blond guy... No! No freaking way! It's Captain Freaking America! And if that's Captain America, then the other guy... I've seen his face before... tall, brunette, fifty yard PTSD stare from traumatic experience most likely a war... War! The World War Two Museum! His picture was there! What was his name... John? Jeremy? Jack? Jame-James! James Buchanan Barnes or "Bucky," that's it! I can't believe these two war hero avengers are really in the same Starbucks that I work in!

On the inside, I am totally fangirling and squeeing like crazy, but I know how annoying it can be to celebrities to have everyone around them turn into a frantic fan mess so I try to stay calm (no offence to any offended fangirls as I myself am one). I nudge Donny with my foot, kind of hard, but he deserved it, I still have a headache. He turns quickly to look at me and I motion with my head to the two heroes and his jaw drops. Sure, he has hacked into Tony Stark's computers before, but actually seeing and meeting some of Avengers means so much more. I tap the bottom of my chin with the back of my hand to discretely tell him to stop drooling and shut his mouth and he complies.

The two men, who had been looking at the menu board from a little ways away, step forward. I look up at them, smile professionally, and say, "What can I get for you today, sirs?"

There must be some friction between them at the moment because Bucky glares at Steve before ordering, "I'd like a tall, iced Americano."

I hold back a snort of laughter, seizing the perfect opportunity, and say, "But you already have one."

Behind me, Donny fails to hold back a snort of laughter, but plays it off as a cough. Bucky blinks, processing what I just said, and looks at Steve for a moment before turning back to me. He smirks, saying, "Yes, but I'd like a different one; this one is defective. It thinks it's a lemming and tried to jump out of an airplane without a parachute."

"I've done it before! I would have been fine!" Steve all but yells, but there is a whine in his voice. "You didn't have to tackle me to the ground and force-strap a parachute on me!"

"You aren't invincible Steve! You could have been seriously hurt or killed on impact! Then where would I be? I couldn't deal with that Steve!" Bucky yells back, glaring at Steve again.

I glare at him as well and say, "Well, I have to agree, it is defective. We will have a new one created momentarily. Would you still like to keep the defective one?"

"I'm not so sure," Bucky says, still glaring at Steve, and the blond wisely keeps his mouth shut.

"How would you like to swap? Mine is being defective as well," I ask, leaning forward against the counter and motioning to Donny behind me with my head. My short brunet friend gulps.

Bucky leans forward on the counter as well and asks, "Hmm... What can he do? I mean, I have to get something out of this."

"Hmm," I say, looking a slightly frightened Donny over. "Well, He isn't a good cook, but can make decent coffees. He sleeps a lot so that is kind of a con, but he is easily entertained and friendly enough when awake. Fairly good with computers. He need a lot of attention though and is very needy. He's also short so if you need something off the top shelf, you better get it yourself. Um... that's about it."

"Hey!" Donny shouts out indignantly.

I make a shooing gesture in his general direction without looking and say, "Can it shorty, adults are talking and I still have a headache." I turn back to Bucky and ask, "So what about yours?"

Donny pouts in the background, mumbling something about being older than me, but I'm not listening to him. Bucky smirks, appraising Steve from over his shoulder and says, "Tsk, about all he's food for is hitting things and jumping out of stuff. But he's pretty strong and is taller than yours."

"Eh, Donny's compact for traveling and convenience, so that's still not a very good deal on my end. I'm sorry to say that I will have to decline. Now if he could cook, that would be a whole new ballgame," I reply.

"Cook?!" Bucky retorted incredulously, "Ha! He can't even turn on toaster let alone make something edible. He could burn water. A bit of a pottymouth nowadays too. It would make his mother very disappointed if she could see him today. I guess I'm stuck with him then. Dang it."

"Hey! I can cook!" Steve protested.

Bucky deadpanned and said, "You nearly burnt down Stark Tower trying to make toast and making cereal is not cooking."

Steve defended his case by saying, "Do you know how confusing it is to work his toaster? So many settings. I panicked, okay?"

"You're Captain America! You don't panic!" Bucky exclaimed and turns back to me.

"Sorry I couldn't help, sir. Tall, Iced Americano right?" I ask, empathetically.

"You got it," he says with a smirk.

"And what for the defective one?" I motion over to Steve with my head.

Steve sighs loudly in irritation and steps up to the counter, saying, "I'd like a grande Iced Mocha, _light_ ice."

"Light ice? Picky isn't he?" I say looking over Steve's shoulder to direct the question to Bucky.

He laughs as Steve grinds his teeth and I ring them up, taking the money Steve begrudgingly hands walks over to the tip jar and throws in a wad of cash, at least three hundred dollars, and says, "To my new favorite barista, Reyrey. Don't let your defect steal any of it."

He must have read my name tag and gave me a nickname. I smile and say, "He won't"

I proceed to make both drinks myself, seeing as Don-in-the-dumps is being a butt and refusing to move from his pouting spot, while Bucky and Steve move off to the side to wait. After I get through, I call out, "I have one tall, Iced Americano for Mr. Barnes and one grande, Iced Mocha, light ice, for the Lemming."

Steve stomps up to the counter where I placed his drink and grabs it, muttering a "thanks." Bucky walks over smiling smugly, takes his drink, tips his imaginary cap, and says, "Thank you and you can call me Bucky."

"You are very welcome Bucky, come again soon," I wave at him as he leaves.

Before he exits the door, he says, "Planning on it."

After he leaves, I look over at Donny, smiling. He gives me a disbelieving look and says, "We just met Steve Rogers and James Barnes: two war heroes and Avengers."

"Yes we did," I say back like it nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"You almost traded me for freaking Captain America."

"Yup."

 _"Why didn't you take his offer?!_ I thought you idolized him!" Donny screams, throwing his hands up into the air.

"First of all, I don't idolize anyone. Secondly, you're my best friend. I would _never_ do that to you! Have a little faith," it's my turn to pout now as I say this.

"You thought about it, didn't you?" he asks, not believing a word I just said.

"If he could cook, it would have been a done deal," I say, deadpanned.

"I hate you."

"Love you, too, Dondon."

* * *

 **So there it is. Hope you liked it. Please review. If you do, I will be a happy fangirl. Introvertasaurus out.**


	2. Bird Bros

****IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!****

 ****Some of you may have read the title and thought that this would be a Bucky/Steve pairing story. YOU ARE WRONG. To those who thought that: I am sorry. It wasn't until one person reviewed and reminded me that Starbucks is the name of the Bucky/Steve pairing that I saw my mistake. Bucky and Steve and only going to be good friends in the story. Nothing more. Sorry about the misnomer.****

 **I don't write lemon or shounen-ai yaoi Fics. Not to anger or ruffle anyone's feathers or start a fight, but it is against my morals to do so. If this bothers you, I am sorry. It is not my intention to offend anyone.**

 _ ****There will be ScienceBros, BirdBros, and Starbucks (all those pairings) in the Fic, but only platonic.****_

 **This story is called Starbucks in Manhattan because it will contain a lot of adventures about my OCs working at Starbucks, in Manhattan. It will also contain adventures of the Avengers on missions and interacting at the Tower.**

 **I do not own anything. I do not own Marvel or Starbucks or anything else that I use in this story. I do not even own Manhattan, contrary to popular belief.**

 **That said, ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

Chapter 2: Bird Bros

Okay, so I haven't been very truthful. I have had a fairly normal childhood, except for one little thing: I have a superpower.

Yes, I know, awesome right!?

Well, it would be if it was cool like being able to control ice or being able to fly, but I wasn't so lucky.

I was cursed with the power of-

 _"Ping pong?!"_ Donny asked, looking at me incredulously. "You seriously want to play _ping pong_ while we are _working?!"_

No, I do not have the power of ping pong. That's just stupid.

The power of ping pong just comes with it. I have the power of trajectory, sight, and agility. With trajectory I can make any shot from anywhere within reason, whether I am using a gun, knife, wad of paper, basketball, or even ping pong paddle. Sight is self explanatory; I can see really well and far away if I want. Agility allows my to have quick reflexes and keep up a high level of fitness, strength, and flexibility without the hassle of stupid workouts. I am actually a very lazy person, but at least I admit it. Basically, I am a female Hawkeye that can use more than just a bow and arrow, but with less training so not as lethal. (Hawkeye is the bomb!)

My talent comes in handy a lot; probably more than you would think.

Cockroach in the house? Give me a rubber band and problem solved. No más cucaracha. Too lazy to get up to go to the garbage can? I'll just toss it from the living room to the kitchen garbage can over my shoulder. Ping pong competition at the workplace? Game on.

"Yes," I say with a nod. "The counter is a perfect playing field and you can rig the surveillance cameras to not show the footage. Plus if you haven't noticed, tonight is a blue moon and Starbucks is deserted. I seriously think I saw a tumbleweed blow past. No joke."

"That was some old lady's poodle being blown away by the wind again and we are not playing ping pong in here. If we get caught, we'll be _fired,"_ Don-kun said with an unamused face.

"Oh okay. But come on! _Please?"_ I plead with puppy dog eyes.

"Those eyes will not work on me this time. The answer is no," He says even though sweat was building on his forehead. He turning away so that the full force of my gaze was directed to the back of his head.

"Please with sprinkles and whipped cream on top?" I beg.

"The amount of sugary treats that the please is coupled with does not affect the outcome of my response: the answer is still no."

Jerk face. Oh, well, I guess it's time to implement plan B. B for Blackmail!

I look away from him and fiddle with the two paddles that were in my hands, bouncing a pingpong ball back and forth with them. I fake a sigh and say, "You know, this reminds me of a funny memory. You were nine I believe, and had the cutest little chubby cheeks. I think I have some pictures-"

Donny cuts me off, saying, "You said you would never mention my weight problem!"

"But you were so cute with your little pudgy belly! Wouldn't it be just _dreadful_ if Clair got ahold of this little fact about your childhood?" I say innocently, as if talking to my self, and continue to focus on the ping pong ball. Donny used to have a _slight_ weight problem as a child. I say slight, he says blimp like. He really wasn't fat, just not fit and in today's age that means the same thing. His parents fought all the time and his father yelled at him a lot; this caused Don to start stress eating. His father called him a disgrace because he wouldn't go out for sports and because he just stayed in his room on his computer all the time. Donnykinz is what the world would call a computer nerd/hacker and basically lives in his room except for the times he has to go to work or school or I drag his sorry butt out for an adventure.

Clair was Donovan's crush since third grade, but she never noticed him except to ask him to do her homework. He always did it for her, but, for the love of chocolate sprinkles, I will never know why. Donny started working out in his room and going running with me and eventually lost the weight and gained some nice muscles. After he lost the weight and got a nice hair cut, his hair was a rat's nest let me tell you, Clair _finally_ noticed how great a guy Donovan is. She's a total b-

Suddenly, Donikinz grabs the ball out of the air, causing me to stop my train of thought, and says, "Fine, but if you dare to breathe a single word of that to Clair I will delete Sherlock."

I gasp, eyes wide in terror. When he says that he will delete Sherlock, he doesn't mean that he will delete the episodes off of my phone or TV. He means that he will delete every trace of Sherlock ever created in the history of the internet so that no one would be able to restore the information. "You wouldn't!"

"I would and will if threatened."

 _"Uhg, Fine,_ I won't say anything your sweetums. You just go work on the cameras."

Five minutes of clearing away coffee supplies and ten seconds of hacking into the cameras later and we are ready for a little friendly competition.

* * *

 _Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok._

The ping pong ball flew back and forth across the table, creating the only sound in the cafe other than the shuffle of feet and occasional grunt of exertion. The score was twenty to one with me in the lead. The only reason Donny got even one point was because he cheated by telling me that the poodle was flying by the window again. Dirty, rotten, cheating son of a-

 _Ding!_

We both stopped and the ball fell on Dondon's side, scoring me yet another point, as we turned, guilty faced, towards the intruders: aka the Once in a Blue Moon Customers. We froze when we recognized who they were: Hawkeye, aka Clint Barton, and Falcon, aka Sam Wilson. Last week it was Bucky Barnes and Captain Freaking America and now the Bird Bros!? It was like a dream come true for me.

They didn't notice us at first as Hawkeye was complaining to Falcon.

"I can't believe you thought it would be a good idea to carry me bridal style for _five miles_ just to get Starbucks" Clint said, nearly yelling, crossing his arms and pouting.

They took one step inside and froze, staring agape at us as we did at them.

"What in the world are you two doing? I thought this was Starbucks not the National Ping pong Championship," Sam said with a slight disapproving look towards us less than professional employees.

Donny gave me a stern, 'I told you this was a bad idea' look and said, "See? This is was I was afraid of! Someone was bound to walk in!"

I just shrugged my shoulders at him, nonchalantly, and asked Hawkeye and Falcon, "Wanna join? We have extra paddles."

The Bird Bros looked at each other and twin devil smirks came across their faces. Clint turned toward me, leaning against and counter, and asked, "What do we get if we win?"

I leaned in closer to him, using my best negotiator face, and said "A free drink every day for a month, each. Our treat. But if you lose, you each owe both of us a favor."

Clint thought it over for a moment and stuck out his hand, "Deal."

I shook it and then handed him a paddle, saying, "Game on."

* * *

The game was serious from start to finish with a small fortune of free drinks on the line. We started out in teams: Donny and I against the Bird Bros. Though, after a few rounds, Don and Sam got tired out and pulled out of the game at the same time, leaving a heated battle between Hawkeye and I going strong. The score was only ten to four with me yet again in the lead, the losses were mostly because of Donny who doesn't have the best reflexes for this game. We had been going nonstop for an hour.

Now that the two lesser players had withdrawn, the game was a fury of underhands, backhands, and sidesteps. After ten more games, it was obvious who the winner was as the ball hit the ground in a last resounding tok. The score was twenty to four. I was victorious!

"How can this be?" Clint asked aloud, as if to himself. "I never lose... Not since..."

He suddenly looked at me with a new light, scrutinizing my face. After a moment, his eyes grew wide and his mouth agape.

"No. NO! It can't be!" Clint exclaimed as he realized exactly who I was.

"But it is," I said smugly.

"Wait," Sam said, looking between Clint and I, before pausing on Clint. "You know her?"

"It was a dark time for me. Just after Budapest... I needed time to think and find myself after everything that happened," Clint sighed with a haunted expression. "I... I turned to ping pong as an outlet. I got good at it. Really good. I was addicted to the game and pretty soon I was attending competitions and was headed to Nationals. I heard a rumor there of a masked ponger who never missed a step, never over or under shot, and never lost a match. I won every match at Nationals until I got to play her. I... I never had a chance." He turned to me and asked, "It was you wasn't it? What happened? I never heard about you after Nationals five years ago."

I sighed and was about to speak, but Donny interrupted first looking between Clint and I, thoroughly confused, and said, "Wait, what now?"

I ignored him and answered Clint saying, "I've tried to put that behind me for so long."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Donny asked, trying again to get an answer out of me.

Ignoring him again, I continued, "It just wasn't the same without anyone near my level to compete with. You were the first person to ever get that close to beating me."

Clint deadpanned, saying, "The score was 50 to 1."

"But no one else even got one," I pointed out.

"WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT?!" Dondon yelled, waving his hands in the air frantically.

Sam, bless his soul, decided to explain to poor, extremely smart, but very lost Donny, saying, "Well it looks like your girlfriend-"

Donny said "Not my girlfriend" the same time I said "Not his girlfriend."

Sam rolled his eyes and started again, "It looks like your _friend_ was a secret world champion ping pong player and Hawkeye here played her at Nationals and was schooled worse than when he tried to out-drink Thor."

"I had him in the ropes," Clint mumbled, pouting again.

"No, you didn't and stop stealing Steve's lines! He's patented that phrase, you know," Falcon said, hitting Hawkeye on the back of the head with his hand.

"Well it looks like you lost the bet," Donovan announces, breaking everyone out of their little revelry.

"Well put, Donikinz," I say with a smile and then deadpan at Clint, saying, "It is getting late today and we are about to close shop, so we would not want to waste our favors at this time. If you would, please write down your phone numbers and we will get back to you if and whenever we need a favor. Thank you and good bye!"

Begrudgingly, they write down their contact information and we bid each other farewell; ending yet another interesting day in the lives of average Starbucks Employees.

* * *

 **I hope you all liked it and sorry for the long wait! I really have no excuses other than I didn't ever feel like writing. Oh well. Please review! Ideas and prompts are welcome, but whether or not I use them is up to me. Also next chapter will most likely include Loki. Thank you for reading! ^_^**


	3. Enter One Depressed Super Villain

**Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait! I truly am, but I have been rather busy with school and life things, but to make up for that here is a Thanksgiving chapter! Sorry for any grammatical errors. I hope you all enjoy.**

 **I own nothing except the plot, Reyna, and Donny.**

 **ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

This had to have been the weirdest week ever. Yes, somehow even weirder than kicking Hawkeye's butt at ping pong and bantering with the Winter Soldier. Trust me I'm the doctor. Well not _The_ Doctor and technically not actually a real doctor either; I never went to medical school and the most serious injury I ever treated was a cut- you know what? Never mind, I'm getting off track. It has been a _very_ weird week. Here, let me start from the beginning.

It started out fairly busy, customers coming in at a moderately steady rate. I was heading Hoobert, the cash register, with Donny making the drinks. So far, it had been pretty much average for a Tuesday evening. Just as that thought crossed my mind, I heard people scream in terror and looked up to see them running out of the my lovely workplace. For a second I thought they had seen through my convincing, or as Donny tells me very fake slightly scary, smile and read my mind to hear what I was really thinking about them. Sometimes I really just want to take that whipped cream bottle and-!

Oh. Wait. There's someone in front of me talking. My inner dialogue overlapped their conversation as I was staring into space near the person's head, spacing out. The customer appears angry- no concerned... no definitely angry; livid even. I can almost see steam coming off of his tall, gold, ram's horn adorned helmet and finely crafted, green, black, and gold patented leather armor. Yup, Loki was very, very cross. I wonder why... Oh! Maybe its because I have been staring into space this whole time instead of paying attention to his royal Asgardian-ness. That must be it.

I blink hard and nod to clear my head and really take in his appearance. Yup. That's Loki alright. Though not quite the Loki everyone knows and fears. This Loki looks like he decided to take on a steam roller head on and lost. Which might actually be the case if the Avengers or, more likely the Hulk, was involved. His armor, usually glossy and shining from careful polishing and cleaning, was torn, scraped, and all around ragged. He looked like crap to tell the truth. Even his majestic Asgardian hair was mussed. Shame.

By now he was yelling and, by the sound of it, cursing in a foreign tongue. I give him my best "How may I maim- I mean serve you" smile and say, "Can you please repeat the order?"

He stops his rant in shock, mouth open and arms waving wildly in the air, and stares at my face as I stare innocently back at him. He quickly composes himself, for he is of course a prince, and says, "I demanded that you procure for me of your finest of beverages, pathetic mortal."

"Right, that will be $4.75. Will that be in cash, credit, or gold?" I ask, without hesitation.

He sighs, wipes his face with his hand, and says, "Cash."

"Alrighty, do you wish to partake of the senior discount? Anyone over 65 gets 10% off their order. Mythology has it that you are over 1000 years old, so I figured I'd throw that out there."

He appears taken aback by the offer, eyeing me suspiciously before nodding slowly and saying, "That would be acceptable. Villainy is quite the taxing occupation; on the body as well as the wallet."

I laugh slightly and ring up his new total, "That brings you to $4.28."

He nods and hands me the money from a wallet that matched his armor and was taken from a less noticeable pocket attached to his belt. He pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to me saying, "One moment if you will, I thinks I have twenty-eight cent."

He then pulls out a small coin pouch covered in a print that depicted tiny, eight-legged horses. I raise a brow and smirked as he counted out the change, asking, "Is that Sleipnir?"

He pauses in his counting to glance with a slight sneer from his coin pouch, up to me, and then back to the coins in his hand, "Hmm, quite so. Thor thought it would be a fitting birthday gift one year as a jest. I would have gotten rid of it ages ago if the blasted thing hadn't served its purpose so conveniently."

I only smile and take the money he offers, giving him back his dollar in change. I ask him to take a seat. He does, sitting as regally as one could in a spinning bar stool, and waits with patients in our now deserted coffee shop. I turn to tell Donny the order, but don't see him at first. Then I notice a shaking Donny shoe sticking out from behind the coffee machine and lo and behold a shaking Donny attached to the shaking shoe. He looks to be in shock, eyes wide but unseeing and knees up to his chest, but I don't know if that is from the fact that the shop is never this empty at this time on a Tuesday or that our newest guest is a super villain. Hmm... It's probably the lack of crowds; that can be confusing for a young barista. Poor thing.

I do what I was taught to do during this sort of situation. I kneel beside him, place a comforting hand on his shoulder, and scream at the top of my lungs, "CONTROL ALT DELETE!"

What was said next by my partner in crime, I will not repeat. Mainly because I do not have the vocal range to do so nor the exact memory of what was said. All I remember was was a list of very explicit words, for shame Mr. Donovan for shame, morphed with girlish screaming.

When he calmed down, he asked calmly, well more calm that he had been pterodactyl screaming at me, but through gritted teeth, _"Why_ in the name of _science_ did you scream control-alt-delete in my ear?"

I poked his forehead as I explained, stating, "Well you weren't responding and I didn't know where your off button was, so I did what you carefully told me to do when something isn't responding and used control-alt-delete."

"I'm not a computer, Reyna," he said, exasperated, and then swatted my hand away, asking, "And why are you poking my head? I'm fine now."

"The control panel still hasn't come up yet," I told him coolly.

"I just told you I'm not a computer!"

"Doesn't hurt to make certain."

He sighed and then sat up rigid, asking, "Aren't we skirting around the real issue here? Or did I just imagine Loki walking through our doors?"

I look over my shoulder to see the prince staring inquisitively at us from his perch at the bar. I wave at him and he hesitantly waves back, giving me an amused, yet confused lift of his brow. Looking back at Donny, I say, "No, he's really here and you need to make a Peppermint mocha hot chocolate stat. I don't want to be fired because of your ineptness to do your job."

"Fired?! He could _kill us!"_ Donny shouted in a stage whisper.

"Aw, be nice Fernando! cant you see he's having a bad day?" I say with a pout. He's so insensitive sometimes.

For some reason, he looked even more outraged, saying, "Fer-Fernando?! How- why... you know what? I give up. Don't come crawling to me if he kills you and leaves you to rot in a ditch."

"It would be impossible to crawl to you if I'm dead," I pointed out.

"My point still stands."

"Whatever. Keep this 'tude up and I won't delete your internet history when you die."

That must have go his attention because he was silent for a long moment before standing up and walking over to the coffee maker. I stood up as well as he ran a hand over his face and said, "Fine, fine, I'll make the psychotic super villain his hot coco."

"Add extra kindness, he's had a rough day," I chimed in, grabbing a chocolate chip muffin from the container and heating it up.

"Yes, Yes, of course, extra _kindness_ for the alien who could probably kill me without even knowing it. 'What was that crunching sound?' 'Oh, nothing. Just you accidentally IMPALING DONOVAN!' Kindness isn't even a real ingredient!" He muttered loudly as I handed Loki the warm muffin.

He and I both looked amused, he was even almost smiling, as I said, "You'll have to excuse him. He gets moody when his life it threatened. Here have a muffin on the house. Muffins make everyone feel better."

"Reyna! Don't be nice to him! He's a villain!" Donny stage whispers to me through gritted teeth as he hands me the peppermint hot coco to give to him.

"Did you add the extra kindness?" I ask sternly.

"Ugh, yes _mum,"_ he whines, rolling his eyes and going back to his station to cleaning up, muttering incoherent words about how the world was out to kill him.

I hand Loki his coco tell him to have a nice day as he gets up to leave. He waves slightly and without a word leaves. About an hour later, a few officers entered our Starbucks and asked us about a Loki sighting. I stepped in before Donny could say a word and told them that it was just a convincing cosplayer of the famed villain. They asked a few more questions before leaving, saying something about that being the 'the fourth this week.'

We don't see anything of him for a couple days, but on the third day, just as a news story was being reported about how the Avengers had once again defeated the Trickster, he walked in. I turned off the television, seeing as it probably wouldn't be nice to rub his loss in his face. As he strides in, very much so depressed and peeved, everyone except Donny and I leave screaming again. He walks to the same bar stool he sat in the first time and I snap my fingers and point at Donny. He cringes as he sees the villain once again inside our shop, but wisely says nothing as I take out a carrot cake muffin with the picture of a little bunny on the top. Donny hands me the coco and I take it to Loki.

As I set it before him, I say, "It's on the house today because you look so depressed. No one should be this depressed on a Friday. Do you want to talk about it?"

He sighs as he takes a bite of the muffin, swallows, and replies, saying, "I am banished from Asgard, Thor tore a hole through my cape with Mjolnir, everyone screams when they see me..." he pauses to take a drink and then blinks in surprise, looking at the cup and smirking up at Donny, "But this is good coco though. I can taste the _kindness."_

Donny when rigid at the villain's gaze, even though he had his back to Loki as he cleaned, and then nodded once in his direction in acknowledgement of the statement.

"I was meandering through the city, minding my own business, when out of nowhere..." he then proceeds to explain to me the situation that led him to his defeat and eventual arrival here. At one point a caffeine deprived individual entered our shop, but got no further than the door mat before he took one look at Loki, turned on his heel, and left. Probably to call the cops.

As he talked, I nodded and added the occasional encouraging remark to make him feel more at ease. When his coco was gone and his rant over, he kindly bid us an adieu and left. A few minutes later, one of the same cops as a few days ago arrived, taking one look at us before exclaiming, _"Again?"_

I nodded with feigned annoyance saying, "People now days right? You would think they would be able to tell the different between a cosplayer and the real villain by now."

The cop shook his head, tipped his hat, and said, "You would think. Thank you for your compliance ma'am."

"No problem," I say with a smile and waved as he left. Ignorant fool, I thought as the smile turned into a devious smirk and Donny shuddered in the background.

That was the official beginning of a beautiful friendship, villainship, or whatever you wish to call it. Weird week right?

This continued steadily for week to come. Loki would lose a battle and then show up at our Starbucks and rant to me about how to world was against him and how Heimdal must be laughing at his misfortune. We also talk about favorite drinks, foods, movies and various other topics. I discovered that he is 'quite fond' of Megamind the movie. He says it is because he can relate to the main character's brilliance, but I prefer to think that it is because they are both super villains with similar rivalries with their fellow heroes and penchants for black leather and flair.

Donny is still wary of Loki, but at least he's stopped whining about how we are both going to end up dead and giving precise detail of how these numerous deaths will occur. Personally, I think he's just jealous that I'm spending as much time with him during the days Loki visits; I have found him on more than one occasion glaring at the villain with something more than the annoyance that the villain keeps showing up at the store and scaring off the other customers. The cops, by the way, gave up coming over to check up on the complaints coming from the scared off customers after the fourth time, much to my joy and Donny's chagrin.

And so yet another strange encounter with famous, or in this case infamous, people has happened in our little Starbucks and all's well that ends well. Or so we thought...

One evening, while sitting and conversing with my favorite super villain over a frappe, Hawkeye and the Falcon walk into our shop, talking animatedly about some topic or other, probably what bird seed brand grossed the most pigeons in the park. They froze as soon as they saw Loki, sitting at ease on a bar stool and twirling his straw in his cup as he talked to me, explaining in depth the proper way to kill a bilgesnipe. Man, it was just getting to the good part too.

It was like a Canadian standoff, each of us waiting patiently for the other to explain themselves; Clint and Sam for us to tell them why a famed super villain was in our shop and slurping a frappe and us for them to state why they were disturbing our peace.

I frowned and said, "I claim my favors. You didn't see anything."

Donny handed them the same drinks they got last time as they nodded in shock and backed out of the shop as we waved. Loki lifted a brow at me, wanting an explanation and I launched into the story of the previous chapter.

So finally, as another day ends, so does another chapter.

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 **Thanks for reading! I will post a new chapter as soon as I can, but I make no promises on the time. Reviews are love and very appreciated. Until next time and Happy Thanksgiving!**


	4. Coffee Deprived Part 1

**Hey guys! I'm alive! Belated Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and Happy New Years! I just realized that I have only published three chapters in six months, I am sooooo sorry! Life has been busy for the past while, but school is slacked off now so hopefully I will be able to create more chapters faster. Hopefully.**

 **Thank you all for your lovely reviews! You don't know how much of an impact you all have on my continuing this story. So thank you everyone.**

Also RussianAssassin: You are even more awesome! Thanks for the encouragement.

–I'll watch my six, you just mind your nine, Introvertasaurus

 **So anyway, enough of that. I own nothing except the plot, Donny, Reyna, and any other original character that pops into my head to add to the mix.**

 **ONWARDS WITH PART ONE OF THE STORY!**

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Today is Thursday: the often forgotten and, quite frankly, underrated day of the week in my opinion. Like Donny. He is also underrated and forgotten by many, including as it seems by Clair.

Poor baby, ever since this morning he has been in a slump. I even arrived before him to work; that fact alone nearly sent me into shock. Not once in all the time that we have worked together have I come in to work before him. I'm never early for anything except art sales, Comic Con, and free donut day at Krispy Kreme, or really anything to do with free food. So, seeing as there was no free food in sight, this was very odd.

He arrived two minutes thirty-two seconds later than I showed up, making him ten minutes twenty-seven seconds late for our actual shift. Said arrival was announced by a loud bang as he ran into the pull-to-open door at the entrance of the shop. Very odd indeed. And he says _I'm_ the clumsy one. Hypocrite.

He opened the door and slumped into the café and onto a bar seat with a fog of depression surrounding him. He buries his head in his arms and sighs pathetically.

Seeing as we didn't truly open for about ten minutes, I had time to force-I mean cajole the information out of him.

I sit down beside him and say, "What's up buttercup?"

A pained groan is my response. Rude. He knows I don't speak groan. Japanese, hai. Dog and cat, yes and yes. Fangirl, yes. I am even fluent in early morning grunts, but groans are not my forte. Time for twenty questions.

"Late night?" I ask, poking the back of his head.

He shakes his head and I poke him again.

"Bloopy die finally?"

Bloopy is his eight year old, horribly disfigured, bobble-head goldfish. Don't ask me how he has kept it alive for so long or even why, all I know is that the little bugger is always staring at me funny; like I'm at the top of its hit list or something. It's creepy and I have been waiting on that thing to die for _years._

Another shake of the head. Dang it. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. Or the next day.

"Let's see… Did your laptop die?"

Shake shake. Poke.

"Did… you watch _The Fault in our Stars?"_

Shake. Poke poke.

Well, what could it be? Unless… I gasp and nearly yell, "DID THEY CANCEL SHERLOCK?!"

He looks up at me in alarm and shakes his head vigorously. I let out a breath of relief then flick his forehead and ask, "Then what is it, Donovan?"

He sighs once more and then concedes; he knows that when I actually call him by his real name that it is one of the few instances where I am serious.

"Clair told me, in not so many words, that she has never liked me, will never like me, and that she was only using me to get better grades," he says and then growls and hits and bar with his fist in frustration and anger, "She was blatantly using me and, like the idiot I am, I let her. I should have listened to you, but I wanted so badly for her to like me. I just… I don't know! I knew she didn't like me, but I thought that she would-I don't know… Agh! I feel like such an idiot!"

SMACK!

He stared stunned at me, a pink hand mark on his cheek. I didn't hit him very hard, just enough to knock some sense into him.

"What are you talking about?! You are Donavan De Alexandris! The world's best hacker! My gosh! Pull yourself together!" I accentuated myself by smacking several times him upside the head with a rolled up art magazine I had in my apron.

"Okay okay okay! I will! Reyna, just stop hitting me with that!" he said, guarding his head with his arms. "Wait a minute. Did you just quote Edna from The Incredibles at me?" Donny inquires suspiciously.

"Maybe? Probably? I don't know, I've been watching a lot of movies lately. That's beside the point though! You are avoiding the topic!" I accuse, flicking his ear.

"Ow! Reyna, that's important for function!" He whined, rubbing the offended spot.

"No it's not, you learned to read lips years ago," I counter.

"I did?"

"You have been doing it subconsciously for the past few months, yes. Here, tell me what I'm saying," I then mouth out a few sentences, each one making him grow paler and paler.

When I was done, he looked more than a little scared and disturbed, saying, "I... I don't want to repeat that. I will be sure to hide Bloopy next time you come over."

I smile and say, "Well now back on topic. Now that you have admitted that She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is a witch, what are you going to do about this?"

"Uhh… binge watch Doctor Who until I get my mind off her?" he stated as a question.

"Wrong!" I say, smacking him upside the head with the magazine again.

"Ow! Then _what?"_

"Well, you have three options. You can let her win and mope in a pool of pity while taking comfort in Sci-Fi British telly. You can do the responsible thing and get over the bi-"

"Reyna!"

"I mean… _person._ You can just get over the… _person_ and go on with on with your life, learning from the experience and become a better person for it, but you were going to end up doing that anyway."

"Uh, alright. Dare I ask what option number three is?" He inquired hesitantly.

I smiled evilly and answered in one breath, "It involves signing her up for as many free magazine subscriptions as we can and hacking into her computer to make it where loud videos about different bodily ailments and Justin Bieber songs pop up at random times of the day and she has to watch them or a virus will deactivate her computer for twenty-four hours. We can work out the rest of the details later. I would say we use the Send-Your-Enemies-Glitter Company, but she would probably enjoy that and we want to make this as untraceable as possible."

"Um… you've thought about this a lot, haven't you?" He asks with a raised brow.

"Only since the day I met the she-devil," I chime with a smile and he sighs. "You good now?"

"Yeah I guess, thanks."

Before I could say anything, the doors opened and a man staggered in, interrupting me rudely might I add. He had messy, curly, dark, bedhead, a scruffy, unshaven face with bags under his eyes, and his clothes looked like he literally threw them on blindly. The buttons on his shirt were in the wrong button holes and only buttoned up part of the way, like he gave up halfway, and a Metallica shirt peeped out from underneath. His pants were wrinkled like he slept in them, his blue tie was sailor hitched around his neck and crooked, and he had on two different types of shoes, one was a nice, black dress shoe and the other was a light-up Iron man slipper. On one side of his face there was a red mark from where he had slept on a flat surface like a desk. To say he looked haggard was an understatement.

"Yo, Bummin'," I called out to him, glaring slightly. He slowly turned towards me, as if in a daze and blinked wearily a few times. When I had as much attention as I could get from him at the moment, I continued, "We were having a moment and plus aren't open yet."

"Uh, Reyna," Donny said in a mock whisper, trying to get my attention, but I waved him off for the moment. I mean who does this guy think he is? Seriously, there are very, very few times when Donny admits that I was right and this bum just interrupted one of the biggest.

Said bum yawned long and hard and then wiped a hand over his face, groaning something. Seriously what is with people and groaning? No one understands that language yet. He seemed to realize this as he took his hand off his face and said, "Look I sorry, but I have been working on a project for the last forty-six hours and if I don't get some coffee within the next five minutes I will collapse and droll all over your clean and shiny floor. So please, please make me some nectar of God. I am willing to pay anything. _Anything."_

"Two thousand six hundred and twenty-eight dollars," I bargain.

 _"Reyna,"_ Donny says through his teeth and giving me a pointed look while pulling on my shirt sleeve, but I just smack his hand away.

"Done," the man accepts, not even hesitating, pulling out his black credit card with the word STARK written on it in big bold letters.

"Alrighty then, what'll it be?" I ask, getting up, taking the card, and moving behind the register to ring up the order, Donny follows while gaping at the man.

"Give me the darkest, thickest stuff you have. If it has the consistency of molasses on a winter day in Canada, it's not dark enough," he ordered.

"Right-o boss man," I say and Donny and I start the process of making _Wide Eyed Death_ _TM_ : guaranteed to wake even the most dead of sleepers. (Note: do not go past by any grave yards while in possession of this drink; Starbucks is not liable if a caffeine driven mass of zombies start attacking the residents of the city because of the drink or any apocalypses that ensue. Talk to your doctor if any itching, oozing, or swelling occurs or if you are prone to heart conditions. If you are unable to close your eyes even to blink or feel a heart attack starting to occur just from the smell of the drink alone, seek immediate medical attention.)

As we donned our gasmasks and protective, acid-grade gloves, Donny stage whispers to me in a near panicked voice, "Rey, do you know _who_ that man _is?!"_

"Uh… A loaded hobo?" I ask innocently. Honestly I didn't care as long as he paid and his card already checked out. I had glanced at the name, but it didn't really register in my mind. I think the first name started with a T, or maybe an I? I don't know.

"THAT'S FREAKING TONY STARK!" Donny said in a very loud whisper, bordering on being hysterical or extremely excited. In fact he was bouncing on the balls of his feet like a fangirl, which is weird. He never acts this excited. Wait. Back up. Who did he say this bum was? Tony Stark?

It couldn't be! I mean it doesn't even look like h- no, no wait… if his hair was brushed and his clothes straightened… and he is wearing a Metallica shirt… and an Iron Man slipper…

Well.

I guess it is him.

* * *

And that is how Tony Stark ended up at our Starbucks.

* * *

End part 1

* * *

 **So what did you all think? Sorry I didn't create the whole thing, but I will try to upload the second half in a few days. Thanks for reading! Please review! Creative criticism is welcome as long as it is friendly, please no flames.**

 **-Introverasaurus out.**


	5. Caffeine Deprived Part 2

By the time we had were halfway finished brewing _Wide Eyed Death_ _TM_ _,_ I had processed that yet _another_ Avenger was in our café. I was also beginning to wonder if our boss was a criminal mastermind and the Avengers showing up was really just their way of keeping an eye on the place. But Donny has assured me countless times that that isn't true and the reason that our boss wears such extravagant clothes is not because she is a wannabe supervillain.

Oh crap! Donny! I nearly forgot about him!

His role-model-slash-borderline-idol was in the same breathing space as him; within spitting distance even, though the metaphor may be outdated it still described the scene well enough. He must be going nuts by now fangirling over the man.

I look over at him to find that this was not the case: he was actually quite calm in spite of his earlier outburst. Scarily calm, despite still bouncing slightly. He looks nervous and jumpy. I have never really seen Donny hit fangirl mode yet, so this could just be his form of the emotion, yes fangirling is its own emotion, or-

Then it hits me: he's scared.

He has hacked into the man's mainframe more times than I can count, which is a lot thank you very much, and now he's scared that Tony Stark found him out.

I poke his cheek and say, "Donbon, chill. He's sleep deprived and probably can't count to twelve."

He still looked skeptical, glancing nervously at the man and saying, "I don't know, Reyna. I mean, he's a genius for binary's sake!"

"Okay, Don Voyage, I'll prove it," I tell him and then look over at Mr. Stark and call out, "Oscorp rocks!"

He simply yawns, waves his hand at us dismissively, and says, "Yeah, yeah, sure kid. Whatever."

I give Donny a smug look that clearly said 'I told you so,' and said out loud, "He probably wouldn't even recognize Loki if he walked in the doors."

"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear," came a voice from beside my head. Donny screamed like a girl scout earning her Caring for Cobras badge while I merely jumped and glared at the man. Alien. Person. Loki merely snickered with a wide, toothy grin, winks at my disapproval, and asks, "So, who is this mewling-pardon- _mortal_ that would not recognize my wide-spread grandeur?"

We have been working on not calling humans mewling quims and other such names for a while and he has been improving, though he still refers to most as 'mortal.' Donny and I were exceptions. He calls me by my name mostly, or Lady Reyna which I have no problem with in the least. Donny on the other hand, is berated, _caringly,_ with names of things I have never heard, Bilgesnipe, and others I have heard, Dwarf, Imp, Elf. He doesn't mind Elf and doesn't know how to feel about Bilgesnipe, but Dwarf and Imp really bug him. You can guess which ones are the Trickster's favorites.

I mirror his grin and ask, "Lokes! Just the man I wanted to see! Though without the dramatic entrance; Donny doesn't like it when you sneak up on him like that. How would you like to have a little fun?"

He lifted a brow, grin slipping into an easy, sly smile, listening and beckoning me to go on, so I elaborated, "The target in question: one Tony Stark. The game: deception, which _is_ your strong suit I believe."

"Hm, quite so," he answered, a light of mischief in his eyes. "How would this... _game_ go about?"

"First we have to set some ground rules," I start, but Donny interrupts me.

"Yeah like 'no killing, maiming, or otherwise hurting or scarring anyone,'" He said this while giving both me and Loki the most distrusting mom look I ever received, even from my real mother.

Loki gave a bitter look at him, _rolled his eyes,_ and huffed out, "Fine, _mum._ You just have to take the fun right out of things, don't you?"

"Only when those things include bodily harm or mental scarring!" Donny retorted, glaring like a disgruntled rabbit.

Loki and I ignored his mothering as I said, "First, you will need to wear something a little less... Asgardian... or medieval... or princely..."

"Whatever do you mean? This is the way I normally dress to conquer the Nine Realms. I was bored and planning a battle for this afternoon," he stated, not seeing the problem. That problem being that he stood out like an elf in the Shire in his green and gold battle garb, or as I like to call it 'Loki Armani.' He was even wearing his cape and helmet today.

"Yes, but you look like Loki," I say bluntly.

He looked confused so Donny sighed and explained, "She means that there is no way anyone who saw you wouldn't know that you are Loki. You need to look more casual."

"You mean peasant-like," he stated.

"If that's what you want to call it," Donny said.

"How you normally dress when you come in!" I chime. Since he has started coming regularly, he has also started dressing more like a 'mortal' so as not to scare off the customers and have the police called in. The clothes are still expensive looking, but more like what is seen every day on Manhattan's streets.

"I see. Easily fixed then," he said, understandingly. Then, without even having to move a muscle and in the blink of an eye, his clothes changed from bad A double S armor to a pair of dark jeans, comfortable shoes, a forest green button up dress shirt, and long black trench coat.

"Yay!" I clapped; I always loved when he used magic. I don't care what other people say about magic being all dirty tricks and cheating, it takes strategy, cunning, and commitment to the trade to use it, or so Loki has told me. It is, and will forever, be awesome in my book. He looked very human and mortal, though there was only one thing off: with his slicked back hair style it was still too easy to recognize him. Though I am tall, he isn't called an Ice Giant for nothing and stands a good head taller, so I tell him, "Bend down a bit, your luscious Asgardian locks are too recognizable in that style."

He merely quirks a brow and complies, muttering, "I could have shortened them with magic."

"Nooo! Blasphemy!" I near yell as I style the locks into a less slicked back more messy look, "It is too glorious and majestic to shorten! Ever!"

"As you wish," he said chuckling as I finish. That hair styling class I took turned out to be useful after all. When I was done, he still looked dapper as all get out, but in a more of a casual, effortless way.

"There, done," I say with a nod. "Now to put the plan into action. Lokie-Dokie, you stay back here for a bit and wait for the most opportune time."

He nods regally as we share a conspiratorial grin and allows us to make the first move.

I grab the just finish cup of _Wide Eyed Death_ _TM_ with my protective, metal grabber and cautiously and slowly brought it to the now sleeping inventor's table. At the smell of it approaching, Tony woke up. He looked up with eager eyes, as I set it softly on the table, careful not to let any of the contents slosh out onto the tabletop. Before he could grab it, Donny held out a clip board with a waver on it saying, "If you could just sign here, here, here, there, and here please. This states that the choice of ingesting this liquid was of your own consent and that we are not liable for any medical issues that may occur as a result."

"Set it on the table, I don't like being handed things," Tony mumbled and then signed the paper in the places Donny pointed out once it was on the table with the pen.

After this, he grabbed the coffee and brought it to his mouth to take a deep swig. The thirty second benchmark passed, he was still alive and conscious, so we took this as a good sign. I glance back a Loki to see him looking around our work area; curious about the machines, but still keeping an eyes on us.

"Mmmm," the inventor said in delight, smiling and relaxing into his chair. "This is the best cup of joe I have had since... Actually since ever. This is the best coffee I have ever had and I have had it flown in still hot straight from the farms in Ethiopia."

Before we could say anything, he pulls out a thin, clear, phone sized object and says, "Jarvis, I want it."

 _"Right away, sir,"_ came a British reply from the object, which turned out to be Tony's Stark Phone. I can tell that Donny is nearly drooling at the sight of the techy phone and actually being able to hear Stark's AI talk. _"Would you like the employee roster as well?"_

"Sure, why not, Jarv," Tony shrugged, "Then we can weed through the rubble. Oh, and don't tell Pepper."

"Understood sir, but I don't understand why you keep trying to hide things like this from Ms. Potts; she always finds out," came Jarvis' sassy reply.

"No one likes a smart alec, Jarv," Tony said, frowning at his invention, and I hear Loki snicker softly in the background.

"Um," I, being the only one not starstruck or Asgardian impersonating a human _,_ decided to speak up. When I had his attention, I asked suspiciously, "What do you mean rubble? And what's this about an employee roster?"

Tony looks up smugly, answering, "Oh, that? I just bought the building. I'm your new boss, Tony Stark, and you are? No wait, Jarv just sent me the roster. Let's see- Ooo it has pictures! That makes things easier. Okay, here we are. You are Reyna Castle- _seriously?! Reyna. Castle._ Reign-a-Castle? Oh man, that is awesome! You are nineteen. An art student. Usually late, but we can look past that; I'm late to everything. Mother is Elizabeth Castle. Father... unknown? Hm. Ping pong champion a few years ago, that's _cool._ Oh!" He then glances at Donny and says, "You're here too. Hm. Donovan Alexandris. You are twenty. Originally from Ireland, I see," He says that part with a scottish accent. "Moved here when you were five. Mother and father's names there, yatta yatta yatta. Okay. Mmhm. _Boring._ Moving o-"

He stopped at what he saw next, staring at the words with intrigue and disbelief.

"Interesting," he mumbled, eyes scanning over the text again. Donny meanwhile, paled and froze where he was. Tony smirked after a moment and said, "Y'know, this is really interesting here. It says here that there is record of you being a hacker a few years back going by the name Exovan. There was once someone who hacked into my system a couple times before. That is, before I increased security. He went by the name Exovan as well."

Donny's face was a mixture of pride and _pure terror,_ which is a very entertaining expression to watch unfold. He swallowed, "H-huh. What a coincidence, r-right?"

Tony looks up at him and there's a few beats of silence when suddenly Tony shrugs and continues scrolling through his phone, "Yeah, must be. Jarvis hasn't detected anything of him in years. Are you two the only active staff members?"

I internally laugh, when he said that he hadn't detected Donny because I knew for a fact that he had hacked his system just the night before. Outwardly, I just nodded and said, "We were trying to hire the object of Donny's obsession Clair," I said her name with as much ' _kindness'_ as one can muster for a she devil, "but that fell through."

I looked to Donny who looked to be on the verge of tears, and yelled in exasperation, "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY-"

Donny let out an inhuman whale-like screech and fell to his knees, "CLAAAAAIRRRRR" and promptly began sobbing in front of his childhood hero. Loki, who had been messing around with some of the buttons and nobs of various machines, lifted a brow at the display.

Tony and I shared a look, silently battling for who was the poor sap condemned to console the poor lad.

I won.

Tony cleared his throat, patted Donny on the back robotically, and said, "There. There."

I glared slightly at the man, and he cleared his throat, looking at me warily, saying, "I'm sure you thought this-what's her name?"

He looks at me and I say roll my eyes and with venom-I mean _kindness_ and through grit teeth at having to say her name again, tell him, _"Clair."_

"Right. I knew that," he goes on, "I'm sure you thought this _Clair,"_ he says the name slowly as if he never hearing it before, "person was the girl of your dreams."

"He did," I interject.

"But there are other fish in the sea," he tells Donny, proud of the words of wisdom he was able to pass on.

"But unfortunately most of them are mindless jellyfish and single cell organisms," I inform them.

Tony gives me a 'gee, way to ruin the moment' look of disappointment as Donny wails once more and says, "look kid, what I'm trying to say is there are probably a lot of girls out there just waiting for you to ask them out."

I deadpan at the man and say, "Don Don Don is a recluse, has social anxiety problems, and stays on his computer all day. His only friend under the age of fifty is me. Don't give me that look Donut, your physics teacher Miss Karen is over fifty, she just looks young and I know you don't talk to many people in class unless forced to. Also internet friends don't count."

Tony looked slightly shocked to be shot down so quickly, "Oh. Well then, we'll have to remedy that."

He then proceeds to take out a little black book from his inside coat pocket. A literal 'little black book' like from the movies that playboys keep the names of the women they meet.

Donny's mouth drops open as Tony flips through the pages. Occasionally the billionaire would pause at a name all the while saying, "I remember you, good times. I don't remember you. Hm, must have been better times. I don't know why you are in here, but whatever. Too old. Also too old. Too dumb. Too... yeah never mind on that one. Ah. Mm. Eh. Meh. Aha! Perfect! No wait... Nope, never mind. She's married. Yup I've got nothing. Wow. This is a low time for me. Let it be heard that as of right now Tony Stark can't hook this poor, young, lonely recluse up with a date!"

During this time, Loki had discovered the pastry bins and marshmallow bars. To his delight, they were both crunchy, sweet, and satisfying as he continued to consume four of the treats.

Donny's face fell and what little hope he had vanished at that moment, "It's okay." He said with slumped shoulders, "I shouldn't have expected anything else."

The emotional moment was then rudely interrupted by a loud 'Crrrssshhhhhhh' sound coming from behind us. We all look back to find Loki with a cornered look on his and a whipped cream bottle held up to his face as he squirted it into his mouth. Donny, through his misery, and I start to crack up, making Loki also snicker, launching the whipped cream in his mouth across the room. In the midst of our laughing, no one seemed to notice the look of growing disdain that had placed itself upon Tony's face. He cleared his throat loudly, and said coldly, "And _who_ might this be?"

Loki wiped the residual whipped cream from his mouth with his sleeve, very unprincely-like if you ask me. He stepped forward and said, "My name is Thomas Hiddleston."

"He's Donzilla's cousin," I quickly say.

 _"Distant_ cousin," Donny retorts, frowning at me.

"Third cousin, twice removed, on his mother's side," Loki provides with a smirk.

"Precisely," I say.

"Hmm..." Tony says, scrutinizing the man. "He looks familiar..."

Before Tony could connect the dots, the smoothie machine from Hades which I have deemed Clair 2.0 decided to fulfill its demonic duties for the day and go crazy. Chaos Ensues.

The delicious creamy strawberry goodness began spraying sporadically, two hoses coming unattached and shooting streams of the gooey stuff all over everything and everyone. In a flash of brilliance, I screamed, "DUCK AND COVER!"

Donny, using the strength he recently acquired through working out, threw me over his shoulder and tackled Tony and Loki to the ground, "EVASIVE MANEUVERS!" He screamed.

We all began crawling on the floor, Tony and Loki going along with everything despite being thoroughly confused. Tony looked to me and Donny with wide and crazy eyes, "HOW DO WE STOP THIS?"

"EXORCISE IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!" We both scream in unison. I wipe some excess smoothie from off of the floor and smeared it on my face like war paint. My eyes narrowed at the demon that is Clair 2.0, "let's do this thing. Tom watch your five, Tony mind the hoses!" In a burst of adrenaline I stood and ran toward the machine. Suddenly I was hit by a wayward blast of strawberry and I hit the ground. Grasping at my chest, I wailed, "UHG. I'VE BEEN HIT!"

Donny screamed and ran to me, "MAN DOWN. WE'VE GOT A MAN DOWN."

As dramatically as I could muster I looked at Donny, "Continue on... without me..." and then I fell back. I then leaned forward again and pulled Donny close and said, "Wait! Delete my internet history first and then continue on!" Then I fell back dramatically once again.

Suddenly the spraying stopped and we all looked toward Loki who stood next to the machine twirling an electrical cord in his hand, "Fire's a good option, but unplugging it works as well."

I gave Loki a glare and muttered, "Spoilsport."

We spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the mess while blaring Metallica and Guns and Roses loudly through the speakers and rocking out. Donny had put the _'closed for maintenance'_ sign up on the door to keep pesky-I mean _welcomed_ customers out soon after the incident. This was allowed because of Tony Stark being the new owner. After everything was cleaned, Tony swaggered out of the cafe, not mentioning anything else about 'Tom's' similarities to Loki, and holding another _Wide Eyed Death_ _TM_ in his hand. The rest of the day was relatively normal, well as normal as it could be with Loki still roaming about, having forgotten about his earlier plan to conquer Manhattan.

* * *

END OF CHAPTER


	6. Smooth Moves

**I bet none of you following along expected another chapter so fast!**

 **Introvertasaurous here along with Catmandu22, or more commonly known as Batman, my now co-writer and RussianAssassin my beta.**

 **After much (not really) debate we have decided to add a ship into the story which you will read shortly.**

 **Please enjoy and sorry it's shorter than the others!**

 **ON WITH THE WORDS**

* * *

Life has been pretty good the last few days with Donny slowly getting over Clair and 'Tom,' Loki's nice, friendly, and suspicious alter ego, hanging around it has been fairly normal. Well, as normal as life with a super villain as one of your best friends can be. Now life with Tony as our boss has been a little... different. Donny walks on pins and needles around him and hasn't hacked into his system since the day we now refer to as _The Downfall Of Clair 2.0._ Tony has literally no set schedule or pattern that we can figure out without spreadsheets and calculations. He just drops by whenever the feeling hits him. The one thing that actually does remain constant is his fascination with our door's bell. The only warning we have of his arrival is the loud, drawn out jingling of said bell.

When most customers come in, the bell chimes happily _'jingle-ing!'_

When Tony, he won't let us call him Mr. Stark, comes in, the bell seems to scream out in distress _'Jingle-ingle-ingle-ingle-ingle-ing-ing-ingle-ing!'_

Needless to say, it is very annoying. I was already in a bad mood this morning from waking up before my alarm clocks, yes I have several. So when I was putting away things below and heard a _jingle-ing,_ a pause, and then _Jingle-ingle-ingle-ingle-ingle-ing-ing-ingle-ing,_ I wasn't happy.

"Tony! Give it a rest alread-" I said as I stood up from the crouching position I had been in only to freeze mid angry rant. I quickly close my mouth upon noticing that I had it wide open, but who could blame me? Bucky Barnes stood in the doorway, the door which he had just stopped shaking in hand, with a mischievous glint in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. He was dressed in jogging pants and another black, long sleeved shirt, like the one I saw him in when I met him. Though, unlike that one, this one had a big, red star in the center and the sleeves were pulled up part of the way, exposing his, might I say, awesome, metal arm. His hair was in a loose pony tail again, but messier than last time. He was breathing slightly hard and looked like he tried to out run a sports bike, which in his line of work could very well have happened.

"Bucky!" I shout happily with a smile. It had been a while since the last time he and Capn' Crunch had been in the cafe. They had been regulars for a while now, usually getting the same thing as before, but occasionally trying new things as Donny and I recommend them. We have all been getting along great, Steve having forgiven me for the picking on him that time, but his nickname The Lemming still stuck. Bucky and I have been getting along the best, though; both of us bantering back and forth, him dropping lame and corny pickup lines and me retorting in kind. "Great to see you again!"

"Hey Reyrey," He said with a warm and playful, yet tired, smile. "Great to see you too."

"You look like you took on a cheetah," I remark with a lifted, inquisitive brow.

He laughed, breathily as he was still breathing harder than usual, and asked, "Did I win?"

"Most decidedly," I say winking.

He laughs again, harder, saying, "Nah, Steve and I were out on a run. Probably did twenty miles at least. All I kept hearing was 'on your left' and seeing him pass me. I mean, my speed is enhanced, but I still have nothing on him."

He suddenly leans across the counter and motions me closer as if to tell me a secret. I comply with a smirk and he says, "Y'know, I would give my left arm for a coffee right now."

I bust out laughing and push off the counter as he does the same, his lips curling into another smirk as I say, "Sure thing, Bucky. What do you want?"

"Uh..." He trails off, looking at the board at a loss. "Something cold?"

"How about a caramel frappuccino?" I suggest.

"Frappu-what? Wait! Is that that thing Steve was telling me about? The coffee milkshake?" he asked, slightly confused.

"Probably, it's blended ice, coffee, and caramel flavoring topped with whipped cream and caramel syrup," I explain. "Probably the best thing to cool you down."

"Sounds fantastic," he said, happy exhaustion seeping into his voice.

"Coming right up," I chime and proceed to making the drink. He watches on in silent intent, curious as to what all the gadgets do. Soon, I have finished the drink and pass I to him with a straw. He carefully tears off one end of the straw's paper, puts the opened end to his lips and blows the long piece at my forehead. I give him a withered glance that said 'really?' as he smiles innocently and says, "Thank you."

I roll my eyes and mutter a "You're welcome" as he takes one long swig of the frozen drink. One second. Two. Three. Wait for it... "AH! Brain freeze! It's so cold!"

Ah, there it is.

I smirk triumphantly, saying, "Serves you right for provoking the employee."

"Rey _rey_ help! I'm dying!" He whined, clutching his head.

"You're telling me that you survived a World War, Hydra, falling off a speeding train, and losing an arm, but you can't take a little freeze head?" I comment with a disbelieving expression.

He stopped wincing and looked off to the side, slightly embarrassed, before looking up innocently and saying, "Maybe. Kiss it better?"

I tried. I really tried, but the blush came of it's own accord as I frowned and flicked his head. Hard.

 _"Ow!_ Okay, okay! I get it! That one was terrible!" He held up one hand in surrender while the other rubbed his forehead, "Now my brain's frozen and my forehead hurts. Thanks Reyrey. Such a lovely soul."

I rolled my eyes at him and patted his head, "Poor Buck Buck." He smiled up at me.

Man, for a guy who got frozen, his smile could melt Antarctica. He cleared his throat, "Can I get my regular, to nurse my aching head?"

I quickly made his drink and slapped the lid on it. I turned around and met him at the register, "Here's your regular. Are you done bothering me now?"

He handed me the exact change and put a few dollars in the tip jar, "Aw, Reyrey, don't be like that. There's actually one more thing I'd like today."

He began to chew on his lip, a slight nervous tick I suppose? I heard Donny enter from the back room, but I couldn't care less.

I raised my eyebrows, "And what will that be?"

"Y-your phone number?"

My eyes widened. Throughout all the times we bantered and swapped pickup lines, he had never seemed so sincere or nervous and had never asked for my number or oh my glob he stuttered like the adorable dork he is. NO. BAD BRAIN. DO NOT GIVE IN.

Of course, because of a rivalry they've had since I was five, my mouth doesn't listen to said brain as it tells him, "S-sure, I'll um.. I'll wr-write it on your cup." Meanwhile I was screaming and running around in a circle in my mind.

Bucky's face lit up like New York city during the invasion as I sharpied my number onto the side of his cup. He smiled widely and hugged me across the counter when I handed him the cup, "Thanks!" He waved goodbye as he left with his coffee cup anD MY ABILITY TO BREATHE OR MOVE OR BLINK.

WHY BUCKY WHY?

* * *

Since recovering the mentioned abilities, I had been screaming for ten minutes straight. I gave my number to Bucky Barnes and as soon as he left, I calmly went to the door, placed the "Closed for Maintenance" sign on the door, turned around, and began screaming. Donny had been a good sport about the first nine minutes, but this last minute had been getting to him. I could tell when he began throwing expired bagels at my head, while hiding behind the counter. Luckily he had very bad aim, so it took him a while to hit me. Once he did, I let out a screech and fell to the ground and promptly adopted the fetal position. As I was rocking back and forth, Donny threw another bagel at me, "STOP SCREAMING, YOU'RE SCARING ME."

I looked at him with wild shiny eyes, "I. CANT. STOP."

Long story short, Donny ended up me enticing with muffins into the storage room and burying me under napkins to muffle my screams in order to continue business for the day. I continued putting off my inner turmoil for the next hour and ate muffins in my napkin palace. I was then rudely interrupted from my panicked state by my butt vibrating. And playing the words "Waddle waddle" from The Duck Song by Bryant Oden.

I jump at the adorable sound and pull my phone out of my back pocket. I swipe it open to see I have a new text message. From an unknown number. From Bucky. Bucky Barnes is texting me. _Bucky Barnes_ is texting me. Bucky Barnes is texting _me._ BUCKY BARNES IS USING MODERN TECHNOLOGY TO COMMUNICATE WITH ME THROUGH PIXELATED LINGUISTICS. OH DEEP FRIED OREOS ON A STICK I CANT BREATHE.

"D-d-d-d-d-d-donNYYYY!" I yelled, jumping up from my napkin palace, sending structural napkins flying in all directions. "DONOVAN SUE ALEXANDRIS GET YOUR SHORT BUTT IN HERE!"

"WHAT?" He yells as he throws open the door, breathing hard and looking panicked.

"HE'S TEXTING WHAT DO I DO?" I screamed at him, shoving the phone in his face.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT'D HE SAY?!" Donny screamed back.

I looked down at my phone to see the message of "Hey:)" "Oooooh." I said with narrowing eyes, "He's smooth."

* * *

 **I hope you all liked it! Please review!**


	7. Anxiety Attack Over Text: Part 1

**"Hey everyone!" Said the scared Introvertasaurus as she climbs out of her burrow to cautiously bestow upon her readers the latest product of her labors.**

 **That was a loooong two weeks, am I right? Yeah? No? Okay so it was a little longer than two weeks *insert Donny's death glare and my retreat into the burrow to peek out* OKAY OKAY a lot longer! And I am very sorry! No excuses this time other than laziness. TTnTT**

 **Anyways, this is part 1 and I know its short, but please bear with me. If it helps any it was my birthday last month. Wooo! Yeah and I am just getting off of a cold. And I have had to deal with stupid school scholarship stuff that got messed up, but I don't have to take Spanish anymore! And I am now rambling and making excuses that I said I wasn't going to do. Crap. Whatever.**

 **Love you guys for sticking with me and not giving up on me! You all rock and are awesome!** **Especially all of you how have said that you have reread my story. That, to me, is the best kind of complement and I'm glad you think I'm funny. That means a lot. So thank you!**

 **Anywho, ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

 _From: Bucky_

 _To: Reyna_

 _Hey:)_

 _Okay. I am good. I am great. I am fire. I am dea- I am stalling. I need to get a grip. I need to stop saying 'I.'_

Taking a deep breath to calm my breathing and focus, I position my thumbs over the English alphabet arranged in keyboard order for maximum proficiency developed by- _No! Bad!_ I start pacing back and forth in the back room. _No stalling! You are not a dead communist leader of Russia! Reyna are going to text him and you are going to do it now!_

I stop pacing and look at Donny, who had been edging towards the door slowly with a wary look on his face.

"Slap me," I demand.

He eyes me for a moment and then says, "Reyna, let's put the phone down for a moment and think this throug-"

"DID I STUTTER, PEASANT? I SAID SLAP ME! THAT'S AN ORDER, DONOVAN!" I yell in my military voice.

Donny, like the good little corporeal he is, anything higher in rank gives him a superiority complex, stands rigid and salutes, saying "Sir yes sir!" before promptly slapping my face.

"OW!" I cry out, holding a hand to my assaulted cheek.

"Sorry!" He quickly says in a worried voice, "It was a reflex from military school."

"You were in there three months in fourth grade!"

"And they were the longest three months of my life," He gets a far off expression for a moment before shaking it off and saying, "You told me to do it!"

"I didn't know you were going to freaking Hulk slap me in the face! What? Do you do like wrist calisthenics every morning? Is this the reason I shouldn't provoke hackers? Because you are all secretly world arm wrestling champs?"

"No! That's not the reason and I'm sorry okay? Why did you even ask me to do that anyway?"

I pause what I was going to say. Why did I ask him to slap me? Oh that's right, Sergeant James Buchannan Barnes the Winter Soldier and freaking Howling Commando just text me and I need to reply. I calmly lifted my phone to type an answer.

"Hi"? Too plain.

"Hiya! :)))" Nope! No way! I'd look too eager. Not that I'm not, I mean Bucky Freaking Barnes just texted me! But still, too eager. Does he even know what the extra ')' mean?

"Ahoy!"? What am I? A ship captain? A pirate? Well I did pirate that movie once. 'Accidentally.' So accidental pirate? No! Bad Reyna! Stay on task!

"Hey:)"? No, that's what he typed.

"Hey(:"? No that just looks weird. Smiles are supposed to be the right way and he would probably think I'm weird if I do it that way.

Oh! Got it!

 _From: Reyna_

 _To: Bucky_

 _Hi ^-^_

There. I sound different from his response. Simple, but not plain; happy, but not overeager. It's-

"Perfect," Donny remarks from over my shoulder somehow, I mean how is he even looking over my shoulder? Is he standing on a box or somet- Yup. He is literally standing on The Box to read over my shoulder. We have never opened The Box, but we have spent hours staring at it and shaking The Box to guess what is inside. Our most recent guesses have been either the meaning to life, the cure for cancer, or bendy straws. The Box has been here long before Starbucks bought the building. He sighs, "Finally you got that over with and can stop freaking me out."

Yes, all is well I just have to wait until he texts back and-

Wait.

Does he expect me to initiate the flow of the conversation? Will he just wait for an awkward amount of time before just giving up and never texting back because I don't understand basic conversation signals? Or maybe he message me back first? He seems like the type that would do that. But what if he isn't?

Did I sound too happy? Or pushy? Did I come on too strong? Maybe it was too childish with the cute happy face. Does he even know how modern virtual conversations work? Do I even know? Do I even know anything? Have I spent my whole life living a lie like the Truman Show? Is the world slowing spiraling into a black hole and the government just doesn't have the heart to tell us?

There are so many things I need to know!

DO PENGUINS HAVE KNEES-

 _"Waddle waddle~"_ My phone chimes in my death grip mid philosophical rant and I jump, almost dropping the device.

 _From: Bucky_

 _To: Reyna_

 _How's my favorite barista? (Don't tell Donny! You've always been my favorite, Rey Rey ;) )_

Oh my Mario Karts. I'm _his favorite!_ Never mind that Donny is still standing on the box looking over my shoulder, now pouting slightly because he thinks he make the better coffees, _I'm_ his FAVORITE! Also, how is it legal to sound so cute and be so smooth over text? And-And a winky face?! How is that fair?! I walk over to the wall and lean my forehead on it and groan before typing a reply.

 _I'm good-_ DELETE, too... _meh_ sounding

 _I'm grea-_ DELETE, nah

 _I'm fin-_ DELETE, nope. Agh! This is complicated!

 _I'm freaking out because you are Bucky Barnes and I don't know how to act around or talk to someone as famous and amazing as you without saying something stupid._

*boop~*

No. NO! Nononono! It didn't!

But it did.

 _From: Reyna_

 _To: Bucky_

 _I'm freaking out because you are Bucky Barnes and I don't know how to act around or talk to someone as amazing as you without saying something stupid and screwing it up._

OH MY GOSH IT SENT! MY FINGER BARELY SKIMMED THE BUTTON AND IT SENT.

My life is over. It has officially ended as of this moment. Mark it on the calendar and circle it in bold, red marker ink.

I'm just going to go find a patch of dirt, dig a hole, and bury myself. Good bye life. Good bye Hoobert; you will hold a special spot in my heart until the very end. Good bye pile of napkins; though I did not know you long, you made a good cocoon of warmth and self-pity. I walk over to the pile and pat it. *Pat pat*

I then proceed to walk around the room staring silently at various objects for a moment before patting them while Donny watched with confusion and growing worried expression.

Good bye bins and crates of miscellaneous items of unknown origins. *Pat pat*

Good bye dust bunnies under the shelves. Steve, the medium sized and slightly blue one.*Pat* Clint, the purplish one with spots. *Pat pat* Hulk, the giant green one which we should have removed months ago. *Pat pat- cough cough hack cough* Which we REALLY should have removed months ago.

Good bye Donovan. *Pat pat* He gives me a disgruntled and dirty look; though it may have been from all the dust that was on my hand from patting the dust bunnies.

It was nice knowing you all. I am going to go play in traffic now.

 **To be continued...**

* * *

 **Am I pardoned? Can I live? Again sorry for the delay I am really trying to keep this story up and I don't want to drop it. But if, God forbid, it did ever come to a point where I did drop it, please know that I would tell you all first and not leave you hanging.**

 **So I hope you enjoyed it and please review if you feel so inclined! Thank you!**

 **Introvertasaurus out. *scurries back into burrow***


	8. Anxiety Attack Over Text: Part 2

**Hey everyone! I'm back! Sorry again about the short chapter last time; hopefully this chapter will make up for that.**

 **I did not get as many reviews and suggestions as I had hoped when I created my previous post, but thank you** havarti2, Lucifer Dragonlordh, **and** GenderbentDragonRider **for your inputs!**

 **I have decided that I will create a different 'story' which will have one-shot like chapters that explain different things from previous chapters and anything that comes to mind that doesn't fit in with the current story's timeline. When I create this, I will post a chapter here to let you all know.**

 **By the way,** Havarti2, **I have a special plan for Logan. *Smiles deviously and chuckles in the background***

 **Okay ramble over, thank you to everyone who actually reads the author's notes up here.**

 **Can I just say that I love all of you? I mean it, you're all so sweet! Every time I am feeling down, I read your reviews and they always bring a smile to my face.**

 **Anywho, thank you all for bearing with me and on with the story!**

* * *

It's dark. I hear mumbling and muttering as if in a great distance. A light appears suddenly. Should I go towards it. I think I should, it feels like the only viable option right now. I am 92.8% sure that I am dead, but I go towards the light anyway. Because why the heck not?

Both I and someone above me cry out in pain.

I look around and slowly piece together what was going on.

Bucky is kneeling beside me with the pointer finger of his metal hand glowing like a flashlight while rubbing his forehead. Donny sitting beside talking, the source of the muttering I heard, and I can now making out what he is saying.

"-was a friend, a fellow comic lover, an artist, a less than mediocre employee, and an absolutely certifiable maniac borderline insane individual. She will be missed. Dearly. Also, for the knowledge of all which are present, I would like it to be known that I call dibs to her movie collection and geek paraphernalia. And her Sonic Screwdriver collection."

A scoff along with a "No fair!" is heard from the background and I look back to see that an indignant Tony is slouching in a chair, sipping on a smoothie from the accursed machine (which he probably got himself as Donny is still wary of it from The Incident), and videotaping the whole thing on his Stark Phone.

Oh, and I also have a tiny black cat asleep in my lap.

Well.

Okay then.

Yup.

"I knew it, I'm dead. So this is what an out of body experience feels like; I was expecting something… I don't know, different? It needs more bright lights and flashes of my past."

Bucky starts laughing while Tony and Donny pout. Buck uses his nonmetal hand to help me sit up and says, "No, you're not dead, but you gave it your best shot."

I blink owlishly at him as I sit up, my head spinning and hurting slightly, and say, "I know this is going to sound like a stupid and redundant question, but what the actual labradoodle happened?"

"You're kidding right?" Tony asks, but is quickly shot down by Donny.

"No, she never kids about hybrid designer dog breeds. Unless it's Great Danehound because why would anyone actually want to breed a Great Dane with Hades' own short legged, German helhounds? It is beyond out combined understandings."

"Can someone please tell me what happened and maybe, I don't know, why there is a very cute kitty cat in my lap? Also can I have an ice pack? My head is killing me," The slight pain has grown now that I am upright and listening to their seemingly loud voices. I grip my forehead lightly. Bucky flashes his finger flashlight at my eyes again probably to judge my pupils' reaction, but it is making my headache worse, but seeing his hand gives me an idea. I grab the cool metal hand and put it against my forehead, sighing in relief as it helps the pounding feeling. "Never mind. This is better."

He chuckles and I pet the cat with one hand, motioning to Donny with the other, saying, "Proceed."

"What is the last thing you remember?"

I think back and though it's foggy, I tell them, "I think I remember something about you slapping me, texting Bucky, and then… playing in traffic?"

"Well, not exactly, what happened-"

Tony then cut in, "What happened was I saved your royal hide! So you had better be grateful, princess!"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Donny gave Tony a firm look, "You weren't playing in traffic, though I was worried about you because it seemed like you were bidding farewells to the dust bunnies for the third time this year. I offered to walk you home and marathon Supernatural to cheer you up so we locked up early. On our way to you apartment, we overheard some people in an alley and you wanted to check it out. We found that they were terrorizing this cat so you ran in and grabbed it, but before you could run away from them they grabbed you. As it turns out, they weren't ordinary thugs and were a part of some evil crime organization. I tried to help you and we both decked a couple of them, but they cornered us at gunpoint. For some reason they really wanted this cat. They hit you on the back of the head and were just about to do the same to me when-"

"When I flew in, repulsor beams blazing, and saved your keisters. I then flew you back here out of the goodness of my heart. You should feel honored. Maybe get a little misty eyed with sentiment. That would be a good start," Tony cut in again.

Bucky then cleared his throat and said, "Don't you mean _we_ saved them? I recall being there."

"Really, Elsa? Are you _sure?_ I don't recall that at all. Maybe your dementia is acting up again, gramps. You can hardly remember anything right anymore."

"Anthony, back in my day-"

"Girls! Girls! You're both pretty! Just stop, okay?" I tell them in a whine because they are giving me another, larger headache. "Both of you saved us from being beaten up and/or killed. Thank you."

"You don't seem to be worried about what to say right now, Reyrey," Bucky remarks, snickers. I furrow my brow, because that sounds familiar for some reason… Then it hits me: the text. My ears and face turn red as he chuckles, "I think she remembers."

"I… I have no idea as to what you are insinuating, good sir," I stammer.

"Oh I believe, dear lady, you do," And there is that godawful, evil, innocent smirk and with those eyes-agh! He just doesn't play fair. "I believe you were talking about how awesome and perfect I am and I would like very much for you to continue."

"I would never use such nice words to describe a scoundrel such as yourself. I agree with Tony, your dementia must be acting up."

"Tsundere," Donny mouths at me with a smirk of his own and I glare weakly at him.

"I am hurt, Reyrey. You wound me here," Bucky placed a hand over his heart. He then grew serious and said, "You don't have to know how to 'act' around, just be yourself, Reyna. I'm just your average, every day, run of the mill, cyborg assassin turned Avenger with a fondness for coffee and spunky baristas."

The mood was then broken by Tony yawning loudly, "Not that I don't love a good heart to heart, but I am in serious need of caffeine, that was the whole point of me paying you peasants a visit and saving you from being pummeled to death. So, unless you have a concussion I would like my espresso. Please."

I sigh and pick up the little cat from my lap, disturbing its slumber long enough to see its familiar bright green eyes. I then set the cat on my shoulder where it nestled in and fell back to sleep as I walked over to the espresso machine to make Tony a cup a Joe.

* * *

The evening past quickly and soon Donny and I were walking back to our apartments together. After we were halfway to our homes and on an empty street, I grabbed the small kitty from my shoulder and held it in front of me saying, "Alright Loki, this is your stop. You can get rid of the disguise now."

Donny gave me an odd look and asked, "Reyna, are you sure you don't have a concussi-"

Though, before he could finish his sentence the cat transformed suddenly into the well dress god of mischief, making Donny jump in surprise.

"Saw through my rues did you? Clever mortal," Loki purred with a signature smirk.

"Loki, what were you doing as a cat?" Donny asks.

"Would you believe taking a catnap?" He asked, but at both of unamused expressions, said, "It was worth a try. Well, since you want to know so badly, I was trying to avoid my oaf of a stepbrother."

"What's Thor done this time?" I inquire.

"What hasn't he done?" Loki exclaims exasperated, "I was for once trying to have what you Midgardians call a 'me day' and we bumped into one another. Quite literally in fact. Thereafter, one incident led to another and a chase ensued. Growing bored of his pursuit, I decided to transform into something that would go unnoticed by him, not that the task would be difficult. Unfortunately, some other and, if it were possible, more barbaric brutes saw my transformation and decided to give chase. I was about to finish them off when you arrived and snatched me. During your scuffle, I was incapable of seeing, as you had my face blinded by your coat, and unable to stop the imbeciles from wounding you. For that you have my deepest apologies. Afterwards, I remained in cat form with you to ensure that you were not seriously injured. I believe you know the rest. "

"Let me get this straight: the reason Reyna nearly ended up with a concussion or worse was because you wanted to avoid your brother?" Donny asked incredulously after we (im)patiently waited for the Word Smith to end his long winded tale.

"Step brother actually or some such rot, but… yes that is the gist of it all," said Word Smith replied.

"You're impossible," Donny exclaimed exasperatedly.

"I take that as a complement."

"Of course you do."

I decide to intervene before the next humans vs aliens war breaks out by pulling Dondon by the arm and saying, "Well, it was wonderful to see you Loki, but we have to go before it gets too dark and Sherlock is going to be on in an hour."

"The pleasure was all mine, dear Reyna, but what prey tell is 'Sherlock'?"

"It's a show about a consulting detective who- You know what, just look it up. I'm sure you'll love it. Anyways, goodnight Lokitty!"

"Hmm, I suppose I might. I await our next meeting with interest."

We then departed company and walked our separate ways home.

* * *

 _Preview for next chapter:_

 _"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygo-"_

 _"Reyna. Stop it."_

 _"DONOVAN DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE ARE?! WE ARE IN A SECRET VILLAIN LAIR! Oh my dreams have come true! Ooo what do those buttons do?"_

 _"Seize her!"_

* * *

 **Well there it is: not even a month has gone by before I post a new chapter and even a preview for the next chapter! I don't know about you, but that feels like an improvement to me and I feel set for the next three months.**

 **Just kidding! The next chapter will come when it comes (which might be three months, but I will try not to keep you guys waiting that long ^-^).**

 **I am sorry if this chapter is not as humorous as the previous chapters (to me it felt like a filler, though a necessary filler), but I assure you the next one will be better. Thank you for reading and bearing with my terribly slow and sporadic updates!**

 **Also I have a question for all of you: I plan to add, and have already added, a lot of hero characters to this story, but what villain characters, besides the amazing Loki, would you like to see?**

 **Please review if you feel so inclined!**

 **Introvertasaurus out.**


	9. Captured

**Hey everyone and, no, this isn't a hoax or the apocalypse or even a blue moon. I just have been feeling like writing this past couple weeks and inspiration has been coming to me more freely for some reason. Anyways, I just wanted to say again thank you for reading and reviewing. Also, I am celebrating 50 reviews and over 5,000 views! Woohoo! You guys are amazing! I feel so loved!**

Lucifer Dragonlordh: **Thank you for being a repeat reviewer! The fact that readers seem to like my story so much makes me very happy!**

Cares113: **Is this a fast enough update?**

MarvelGG: **I'm really glad you like the story! The official ship name for ReynaXBucky right now is Jayna, like James+Reyna, but I am open to suggestions about it. Also I agree, Lokitty is adorable.**

Leafdragon117: **Sherlock is my life! (My nickname is actually Sherlock to some of my friends ^-^) Whenever you get the chance, you should really watch the newest season and special, they were amazing!**

Shannon K: **I'm glad you decided to give my story a try and that it made you laugh! This story started as just a really small thing I created when I was bored one day and it is really neat to see it grow and I feel like I have a little fan base. It's awesome! Cheers to you as well!**

TFAN Override-Dragon Light: **Thank you and I hope the future chapters live up to your expectations!**

 **Thank you to all of my silent supporters and readers as well! You are all loved!**

 **Anywho, ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

I should have known this would happen.

I should have seen it coming.

The way he was always there… watching… waiting… playing Galaga. (At least that's the latest theory as to what he does on that accursed laptop.) I should have noticed sooner the Russian accent; the maniacal too friendly glint in his eye; the way he came nearly religiously every day to the café at the same time like clockwork and ordered the same thing before taking his same seat in the back where he could menacingly observe everything.

It all makes sense now that everything has happened, but, then again, hindsight is always 20/20.

So here we are. All five of us.

The innocent art student and not so legally innocent hacker who had worked at a coffee shop to pay off their surmounting college debts, only to be dragged into the current situation and who are now playing morose songs on kazoos which were found in the art student's pocket stashed away for an 'emergency.' The former angry Russian assassin turned disgruntled trash panda crime fighter singing morose, made up on spot songs to accompany the sweet kazoo melodies. The guy who would die first in a horror movie and is as of the moment cooing like a pigeon, stuffing his mouth with bird seed, and staring with wide blank eyes at the upside down swimming of a disfigured, but somehow still alive (though slightly singed) goldfish in a crunchy peanut butter container…

That's right. Myself, Donny, Bucky, Clint, and Donny's goldfish Bloopie are all trapped…

In a prison cell…

In an old Hydra base… According to the evil octopus logos spray painted on every wall…

In Serbia… According to the large "You Are Here" world board hung on one said logo painted wall…

With only cold Chinese takeout and corn fritters to eat…

…

…

….

..

Because of **Frank.**

* * *

I should probably explain this story from the beginning.

It had been a week since the Text and Feline Debacle and all was going great. Fantastic even! Donny's fish was sick!

Now, I realize that by saying this I sound like a horrible, heartless person, but let me just lay out all of the facts: the fish is flipping _eight years old._

Still not enough to hate such a creature? Well, let me just describe it to you and let you be the judge. It is blind with bright, cloudy white eyes. Before you gasp loudly and run to the defense to a poor, old, blind fish, let it be known that it seems to know when anyone is in the room and stares at them creepily the entire time they are in its presence with cold, dead eyes. I swear it is trying to take mental control of the weak minded with its thoughts alone and you can feel a physical cooler temperature change when the fish is in the room.

Bloopy's scales are wrinkled and bare in some places and its tail and fins are torn. Its body is disfigured and one of its bobbly eyes is noticeably larger than the other, adding to the eerie hunchfish of Notre Dame look. It also swims sideways sometimes due to the lopsided sized eyes. To be blunt, it is the most butt ugly and creepy fish I have ever witnessed. The vet says that it is quite healthy for such an old fish and it has been Donny's companion nearly as long as I have, but, despite this, I firmly believe that this fish will be the sole cause of the Zombie Apocalypse… and the sole survivor of it.

Well, anyway, this morning Donny called me in a frantic frenzy, yelling about Bloopy being dead. I made the mistake of asking him if he was sure instead of just telling him to give it the funneling funeral it deserves. As it turns out, Bloopie was (extremely unfortunately) still alive, but Donny decided to take it to the vet to make sure that something serious wasn't wrong. He doesn't have a small tank to take it to the vet as the one he used to have was knocked over when he bumped the table it was on in a fit of Monopoly fuel rage. Soo instead of a tank, he used a large, empty peanut butter container which had the label ripped off.

Turns out, Bloopy was fine and the vet couldn't find anything wrong with it. Pity.

Donny didn't have time before our shift to take it home, so he brought the creature in with him to work.

Now as he and I served the morning rush of our regular clientele, I, along with the customers, had to deal with looking at the… thing. Luckily, after the rush was over and we had the café nearly to ourselves, Bucky and Clint walked in the doors giving me a distraction from the upside down swimming fish. The doors gave a frightened and quick _Jangle-ang_ of alarm at the presence of the metal armed assassin.

"Bucky, Clint, hey!" I say at them, waving and smiling.

"Hey guys," Donny greets with a small wave of his own.

"Yo Bluebird, Vinny," Clint says back with an easy grin. After a couple weeks of knowing us, the archer had taken us under wing so to speak and given us both codenames. Bluebird for me because of my blue tipped hair and Vinny for Donny because he had watched too many mafia movies and Donny can do a legit mobster accent. He was holding his bow and arrow case, never leaving home without it it seemed, and dressed in comfortable clothing, but his jacked bulged oddly as if filled with something.

At the same time, Bucky, who was also dressed comfortably, says, "Hey Reyrey, hey Donny."

"What'll it be, fellas? The usual or do you wanna spice it up a little?" I wink at Bucky who smirks back and was about to say something when something catches his eye at the back of the café and his face grows into an odd expression.

That was odd, he usually has a smooth, smart mouthed quip ready and waiting for me, but before I could think too much about this, Clint was speaking, "Just the usual if you don't mind and keep him away from it. I returned from a mission today and found my apartment filled with birdseed! It was everywhere! In my bathtub, filling my mattress, the insides of my clothes!" Here he put a hand inside of his pocket and withdrew a handful of seeds, slinging them everywhere, but not seeming to care as he was too miffed. "Even in my ever so beloved coffee machine! So that's why we're here, Winter's buying me coffee and a new machine." He then took notice of the peanut butter jar and its occupant and gave a freaked out frown, asking, "What. Is. _That?"_

"Bloopy," I answered before raising a brow at him and then looking back at Bucky, about to ask him about the bird seed prank, but his darkened expression stopped me. He was still staring at the back of the room and I grew worried as I watch as he tenses up and ask, "Buck? What's wrong?"

He glances at me before going back to start at the back corner of the café and asking, "Who's that?"

I look back there and see our mysterious caffeine junky, his face hidden from my view by his computer screen. I look back at Bucky and tell him, "Oh, that's Frank. He's been a regular here for some time. I thought for sure that you would have seen him here before."

"I don't recall. Question though," He says and I look at him curiously, "does he always wear a gas mask?"

"Gas mask?" Donny asks from beside me.

I turn suddenly to the man in question and all hell breaks loose.

The next few moments are a fast paced blur and I can hardly keep track of what's going on.

A window shatters as something is thrown through it, making Donny and I duck while Bucky and Clint get into defensive positions in front of us, shielding us from whatever may come. Smoke fills the air from the thing that shattered the window and Frank pulls out a gun from his computer bag, aiming it at us. Frank gets off one shot at Bucky, which was deflected by Bucky's metal arm. Bucky, not in full Winter Soldier mode, is across the room in moments, grabbing the gun out of the other man's hands and firing it into Frank's chest. Three darts land in the center of Frank's chest from the gun, knockout rounds made to incapacitate, not kill.

More shots ring out from outside the building and my heart is pounding in my ears. Donny looks as pale as I feel as he pulls me behind the counter while Clint gives us cover from the armed and gas masked men who enter the building.

We all do a fairly awesome job of taking out the men, Donny and I help by throwing heavy things at the men, ceramic mugs and metal objects. I aim for their heads to them knock out while Donny, whose aim is less precise, ends up just throwing objects wildly, creating more of a distraction and confusion than anything, but it give Bucky and Clint openings for attacks.

As we lobbed the items and Clint and Bucky shot and punched the baddies, Donny and I shouted out scores like we were playing a video game.

"Headshot! Ten points!" I yell over the commotion.

"Leg shot! Fifteen points!" Donny yells back.

"No fair! Head shots are worth more!" Bash! "Groin shot! Double the XP!"

"Woman, have you never played a first person shooter?! Leg shots kill instantly!" Crash! "Knee shot! It takes multiple hits to kill with a head shot!"

"Tell that to my-" Thunk-th-thunk! "Triple head shot! Achievement obtained! I received the golden cup!" I loft a gold sparkle painted coffee mug over my head, my throat getting a scratchy feeling and my head feeling light. _It must be the smoke,_ I thought.

Donny started to cough as he yelled, "Rebel troops incoming! Watch you three!"

With a disappointed sigh at having to give up me trophy, I threw the shiny ceramic cup at the approaching man's head, causing him to fall to the ground unconscious.

One man threw a taser-like object, which missed Donny and landed in Bloopy's jar.

"BLOOPY!" Donny cried out in distress, coughing more loudly as the water sizzled and shone with electricity for a moment before fizzling out and leaving the fish surprised and singed, but not too worse for wear. Again, pity. Angered, Donny threw a metal thermos at the culprit with all his might and knocked the man unconscious instantly.

The battle raged on for a couple more minutes, each of us coughing more and more as time wore on. We tried our hardest to fend them off, but unfortunately, pinned in and with no way to avoid the toxic smoke, we are all soon unconscious.

* * *

So here we are. Four people, a fish, two kazoos, a pile of birdseed and cold takeout.

We woke up about two hours ago in this cell to find the takeout and corn fritters, and have been boredly waiting ever since. The gas must have had some lasting effects on Clint because I was awaked by him 'pecking' my ankle and cooing like a pigeon. Bucky, Donny, and I do not seem to be affected by the gas, other than Bucky's sudden onset singing. He had been singing thirty minutes before I remembered that I had packed two kazoos in my pocket earlier that day in case there ever was an emergency.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of melodious and lyrical genius, the cell doors open. Guards in matching magenta and aquamarine uniforms fill the wall of the cell, all armed with heavy duty tranquilizer guns. The one who looks the most in charge, based on the amount of teal emu feathers sticking out of his bowler hat, commands us in a high pitched, nasally voice, "Cease your incessant kazooing and singing at once! Stand against the wall with your back to us and arms behind you. If you move, we will be forced to use… Force."

Trying not to laugh, or coo in a humorous manner in Clint's case, at their blindingly bright, matching outfits and myriad array of tassels, we do as they say and humor them; each of us having a silent agreement to see how everything played out.

A guard penguin waddled over to each of us and manacled our wrists together behind our backs. This was an odd bunch, they dressed and acted like wannabe supervillain impersonators from a Comic-Con, but they also seemed to have military training if the fight back at the café was anything to go by. It was an unusual combination to say the least.

Once properly restrained, we were led out of the cell single file, sandwiched between two lines of guards. One guard even grabbed Bloopy and two men trained their guns at his jar, he just stared blankly at them. Clint occasionally pecked the guards beside him and cocking his head curiously at their shiny, sequined vests. He was quiet thankfully, seemingly wary of these brightly dressed men. They walked us down a few corridors until we reached one final door which opened into a large warehouse-type space. We were on a platform a couple stories above the ground of the great space. In front of us was a high-backed, black leather, swivel chair.

"Welcome," came a voice from the front of the chair.

I nudged Donny excitedly, whispering, "It's gonna do it! He's going to do the dramatic villain spinning his chair around reveal!"

Just after I said that, the chair spun around in a predictably dramatic fashion, revealing the balding villain in all black attire. He looked like a KISS member impersonator. A very bad one at that, with crudely drawn on black and white face makeup and studded leather clothing. His shirt was a deep, deep, lace up V-neck and he had on high heeled black, knee high boots.

"Told you," I whispered to Donny again, smiling in satisfaction.

"Well, well, well… What do we have here?" The man said, standing up carefully in his stiletto heels and tight leather pants. He wobbled closer, motioning for one of the guards to come close to him and then leaned on the man until they both reached us. "Let's see… Two civilians… A fish? That can be over looked this time Frank. Next time don't bring me useless civilians."

At this he looks over to one of the men already in the room who, as it turns out, is Frank. That traitor.

"They may be of more use to us than you think, sir. They are friends of the other two prisoners," Frank said.

"Hmm… We shall see. Ah! Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier! My, it appears that you have done a good job after all, Frank," The villain said with a toothy smile. "These two shall help me further my plans for world domination!"

Then, as if the smoke had clouded my mind, it hit me. We are in a villain's lair. We are in a cliché villain's lair!

I can't help it as I start bouncing on the balls of om feet, saying, "Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygo-"

Donny nudged me, whispering loudly, "Reyna! Stop it!"

I turn to him and yell, "DONOVAN DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE ARE?! WE ARE IN A SECRET VILLIAN LAIR! Oh my dreams have come true! Look! There's a control board! Ooo what do those buttons do?"

I run towards the control board before anyone can grab me, jumping over my restrained hands so they are now in from of me.

"Seize her!" the leader bellows, turning sharply towards me and tripping on his heels. The guard near him grabs him to keep him steady and from falling over.

A guard tries to grab me as I move toward the control panel, but I slip out of his arms and he, unbalanced, fall to the ground. I lean over the panel and start pressing buttons and flipping switches at random. At the back of the building I hear and feel a large explosion. Oops. The blast of it knocks the guards approaching me, as well as their leader, over, giving me more time to figure out something that would help up escape. Not that I don't love the awesome cliché villainous atmosphere, but I would rather not be a part of their plan of world domination. Whatever it was.

Behind me, Bucky, Clint who seemed to be coming to his senses, and Donny use the distraction to knock over several of the guards, Donny grabbing Bloopy as he did so, and try to escape. As I am looking for something to help our escape, the leader gets the drop on me somehow and grabs me around the waist, pointing a very real gun at my head.

"Freeze or the girl gets it!" He bellows and everyone stops to look in our direction.

I look forlornly at my comrades as they stop punching the guards and put their hands in the air in surrender.

"Sorry guys," I say weakly.

To Be Continued…

* * *

 **So what do you guys think? Does this make up for last chapter?**

 **I would love to hear all of your inputs and suggestions and requests so please review below if you feel inclined.**

 **Introvertasaurus out.**


	10. Captured Part 2

**I LIVE!**

 **Hey all! It is I, the majestic Introvertasaurus who can't remember how to spell her own name right!**

 *****PLEASE READ*****

 **Soooo, the inspiration ran out and the holidays hit.**

 **Sorry for the long delay... again. The holidays have been extremely busy, for you as well I imagine. I just wanted to post this because I promised to post something soon and didn't want to stretch it out even longer.**

 **I have more written, quite a bit more, but I have been having trouble** **finding time to complete it. Sorry that this chapter is not as humorous as the previous ones, but I plan to fix that in the future chapters. This chapter might possibly be revised when I post the next chapter so be sure to read the author notes when I post the next chapter before you read it so you don't miss anything. So, again sorry if this chapter doesn't match up humor wise to it's previous chapters.**

 **I will be posting the next chapter as soon as I can!**

 **I have also changed the name of these parts because I named the previous chapter in a rush and now don't know how to weave that into the story. :/**

 **Anywho, ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

The villain in all his sparkly, tight leather glory keeps himself balanced by holding me uncomfortably close and at gunpoint while I try to think of a way out of the situation.

Since we got here, seeing the guards in their bizarre uniforms and the villain suited up in skin tight leather, I had thought our situation was comical and was actually excited to be a part of it. Everything seemed to be like out of a comic book, but now, with a gun pressed against me and my friends in similar positions… I think… I may be beginning to have second though-nope. Sorry. Never mind. False alarm. It was just one too many corn fritters settling with me weirdly; which I still don't know why they fed to us in the first place. Along with cold Chinese takeout. I mean seriously, why that combination?

Maybe it is part of their custom to present small blob shaped corn cakes and foreigner cuisine to their captives before their certain doom? Or that could have been the only thing left in the freezer and they didn't want to seem unhospitable towards their victims by not offering us anything? Or maybe Frank's wife had made a surplus of the leftovers and told him to give them to his friends at work and Frank, not having the heart to tell her that he didn't have friends at work, brought them and decided to give them to us?

With the questions still heavy on my mind, I glance to my friends to assess the situation. Bucky, the closest to me, is glaring loathingly at the villain while being pushed to his knees and held down by several armed guards. His eyes, never leaving the villain, seem pitch black and I have never seen him angrier as he watches the man with such a cold expression that I can safely say that I officially know why they called him the Winter Soldier, other than for of his recent affinity for java chip Frappuccino's.

It's so different from the suave flirt I know that I blinked in surprise. From what information I have been able to obtain (while internet stalking… slightly), he could easily take down all the guards in this room even while restrained and not even break a sweat, but I guess he doesn't want to risk it with so many other hostages.

I tear my gaze from the Winter Soldier to Donny to see him clutching Bloopy's slightly-peanut-butter-smeared jar and looking like he is ready to put his extensive knowledge of prison shanks to good use while eyeing a half empty chocolate pudding cup on a table nearby. Two guards train their weapons on him and I can see his knuckles go white around the jar as he glares seethingly at my restrainer.

Finally I look to Clint, who apparently hasn't come around as much as I thought he had, as he tries to make himself appear bigger by doing his best impression of an angered pigeon while cooing and throwing birdseed from his seemingly endless supply at the guards who are trapping him in a corner.

I sigh at my comrades. Since they can't do anything as of the moment, I am left with the option of trying to stall for time. Looking finally to the villain, I ask, "So what's your name anyway? I mean, this is kind of a bonding moment for us; you holding me and my friends at gunpoint, threatening our lives. It's a fragile moment. Really a turning point in our relationship, wouldn't you say…"

I prompted for his name and he rolls his eyes and states, "Floyd. My name is Floyd."

"So Floyd… is that a family name or did your mom really hate-" He glares at me and shoves the gun a little more into my ribs. From the corner of my eye I see Bucky and Donny tense even more and decide to change topics before anyone does something rash. I put my hands up in a placating manner and glance at my friends, mostly to calm them down than Floyd. I tell the villain, "Okay, sorry, sore subject. Floyd's a good name; a strong name for a strong leader. You are not going to have super villain copyright issues with that name. So here's the deal: we don't want you to kill or maim us and you don't want to waste time on trivial matters, yeah? So… _Floyd…"_ I stretch the sounds in his name and end with a solid _'duh.'_ Taking a deep breath here, I look him dead in the eyes, and deadpan, "Tell us what you want. What you really, _really_ want."

He lessens his glare some and leans in a little closer, has the guy never heard of a personal bubble? I mean really-and is that a cheerio stuck in his-Yep that is a cherrio stuck in his sideburn. Right in there. How… How does he not feel that thing? He tries really hard to sound menacing, I have to give him credit for that, but it's really hard to be intimidated when all I can think about is that cheerio and how bad his breath smells. I mean has he never heard of Trident gum? Or TicTacs? Icebreakers? "I'll tell you what I want. What I really, _really_ want," It's like goldfish crackers. Really, really off putting goldfish crackers. Like cheddar flavored Bloopy . I lean as far away as possible with a deep frown as he says, "I want a-"

"Hic."

"I want a-"

"Hic."

"I WANT WHOEVER IS HICCUPING TO STOP RIGHT NOW OR I WILL COVER THEM IN HONEY AND TIE THEM NAKED TO AN ANTBED," He turns his gun towards where the sound was coming from.

"Sorry boss," Frank says, awkwardly shuffling on the sidelines. "I've just been getting the hiccups a lot lately since we got back from America."

"Jet lag," Donny tells him, "Does Reyna the same way."

"Does *hic* not!" I retort, glaring at him when I'm proven wrong.

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!" Floyd stomps his foot, nearly breaking a heel, while screeching right into my ear. Ouch. Can he not? I mean that's just rude. Poor Fran-NO! Not _'poor Frank'_! He's the one who got us into this mess! Poor _us!_ Poor _me!_ I'm the one pressed into and being held at gunpoint by a guy with poor who smells like mutated snack food! And if he or someone else does not do something about that sideburn cheerio soon I am going to have to take matters into my own hands.

"Hic," He turns to glare at me now, gun aimed at my head.

Quickly I put my hands up in surrender, and, feigning defeat, say, "Alright! Alright! We'll*hic*give you what you want!"

He seems caught off guard for a moment, "You will-? I mean of course you will!"

"Yes you... Have defeated us," I say monotonously, spitting out the words. "The fish is yours… Take it."

He smirks in triumph, "Yes I shall take the fi-" freezing he frowns and bellows, "What do you mean fish?! I am going to take the asset and archer not some useless, slimy... _Thing."_

I wipe off the last word he said from my face. Say it, don't spray it, Gene Simmons. Though I do agree that 'Thing' is an appropriate term. Suddenly I can feel the cold stare of Bloopy. I shiver. Creepy, creepy fish. Shaking off the weird fish vibe, I shrug and tell Floyd, "Your loss."

"I can live with that," He says flippantly waving the gun in the air with a shrug.

"You say that now Floyd, you say that now. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity though, so don't come crying to me when you are in need of a weapon powerful enough to persuade an entire nation and don't have one."

Persuade them to cringe mayb-and again with the feeling of bloodlust seeping from the fish behind me! It's not my fault you have a face only a Donny could love! I can see that what I said is beginning to bother him after a moment because the next thing he asks is, "Why is it my loss? What weapon? It looks like just a fish."

I start laughing in his face at that, but before Floyd gets too angry, I let up and wipe a tear from my eye from laughing so hard and say, "Just a fish? _Just_ a _fish?!_ You must really be touched in the head or something. Did you not feel the way the air dropped in temperature when this-this _specimen_ was escorted through the door by armed guards?!"

"Actually we were escorting y-" Frank starts, but I talk over him.

"Or the feeling that your mind is being probed of all its dirty secrets at a mere glance from those cold, unseeing eyes?! Even your guards know this is not 'just a fish!' They have their guns trained on its crunchy lair right now-and for good reason!" I motion to the men surrounding Donny and Bloopy. The guards straighten up at the attention, directing their guns more towards the fish. Donny smiles sheepishly and waves as best as he could with his hands cuffed together and holding the jar. "Look how it swims upside down without a care in the world all the while looking like something that fell off the bottom of a shoe!" The glare intensifies. Sorry Bloopy, but it had to be said. Also if you have mind reading powers like I always knew you did: this is all being said so that the one who calls you his Bloopy-Woopy and feeds you and cleans your tank and loves you will be safe.

Pleasedon'tkillmewithyourlasereyes.

"Can 'just a fish' do that? I don't think so! This fish is the key to all that is locked! It is the eighth wonder of the scientific world! To pass up such an opportunity to study and use this creature would be an enormous waste. But if you just want to let the opportunity pass, then..." I sigh deeply again, "Your loss."

"Enough with the excessive babbling! I know what you are doing! You are trying to stall so that your Avenger friends will come save you, but that will never happen!" He laughs maniacally here and throws me towards my friends. Bucky grabs me to stop me from falling. "By the time the Avengers arrive, it will be too late for them to stop us."

Here he takes a pause from his typical villain speech to laugh maniacally, all the while trying to hold his balance on top of his stilettos. Seriously, has no one told him about wedges?

Suddenly he becomes serious and barks an order at Frank, "Lock them back in the cell. And have the chair prepared and ready for testing. Maybe the civilians can actually be of use to us after all."

I feel Bucky stiffen behind me and Floyds turns to him saying, "Why yes, Soldier, I do believe you are quite familiar with the chair; we dug it up when we found this base. It was a backup in case SHIELD ever chopped off one of our heads so to speak. Take them away!"

* * *

 **Thank you for reading! Please review if you feel so kind! I seriously enjoy reading you guy's comments and need suggestions to fuel my creativity. So if you think of something funny or cool or whatever and want to share PLEASE BY ALL MEANS DO! You brighten my sometimes crumby day. :)**

 **Merry Christmas! And because I missed it, Happy Thanks Giving and Happy Hanukkah! Feliz Navidad! Finally, if I miss it as well, Happy Freaking New Year! I love all of you!**


	11. Captured Part 3

In the words of Sherlock(my other nickname btw), "Not Dead."

Yes, the Introverasaurus lives.

"Praise be!" Hopefully some of you say.

 ** _"Finally,"_ ** realistically most of you are probably ranting.

Fun Fact: I have found that if left alone to its own devices and dust, a fanfiction story will indeed not write itself. Who knew, right? Right?!

Anyway, let's get this part over with: "it's been busy", "I haven't had a lot of time to write", "I have been depressed and/or just haven't felt like writing", "They didn't have my brand of yogurt at the Wally World", "Other widely and overly used generic excuse."

I am here, back to writing, and that's all that matters, right?

Any who, ON WITH THE STORY!

* * *

 _Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a Helicarrier._

"They have been gone for hours and we still have no idea where they are. So Tony, you want to tell me again how amazing the age of technology is again?" Steve says in his best disappointed dad voice.

"It is amazing and awesome and completely useless, just like you," Stark snarked back from his position of hovering over a monitor, tapping seemingly random things that were probably detrimental to the finding and rescuing of Reyna and Donovan, before adding, "Look Capsicle, I am just as worried and upset as you, but the Arm Guy and the Bird Guy are with them. I'm sure they're fine. They're fine, we're fine, everything's _fine._ Now stop griping and go lift weights or do yoga or whatever super soldiers do to relax. Bruce probably has some stress meds or a secret bag of weed around here somewhere if you are feeling desperate. Not that I promote illicit substances; don't do drugs kids. There is nothing you can do now except wait and let the professionals, i.e. ME, do all the work. There will be plenty of time so you can swoop in all tights and righteousness fueled passion and save them later. So scram, you're throwing off my groove."

"Tony," Steve paused, seeming to rethink what he was going to say before sighing and shaking his head, turning to leave. As he strode away, he said over his shoulder, "Just find them."

"Roger that, Rogers," Tony threw a mock salute up even though the super soldier couldn't see him. Once Steve had left the room, Tony turned suddenly serious and returned his full, unadulterated attention to the monitor. They would find them.

* * *

We are under heavy guard as we are guided back along the path that takes us to the cell. I make eye contact with Donny, who is walking beside me. He sighs and gives me a 'What now?' look.

I send him a sad return glance to tell him 'I don't know…"

Suddenly a plan comes to mind. It is a terrible plan, I know even as it takes root in my mind; a terrible, awful, horrid, wonderful idea. Donny and I had been working on the skills needed for this type of plan to work for the past few months, just in case we ever needed them and today it looks like the perfect chance to test them out. All we need is a distraction and not to get shot or unalived.

A smile grows across my face as I glance at Donny.

Instantly he knows something is up and sends me a glare to say 'Absolutely not, I want to live long enough to see my high school bullies slowly dwindle their lives away until they are reduced to assistant register manager at McDonald's while I am the CEO and founder of the leading tech company so I can stare them in the eyes with a smile and tell them how much 'I'm lovin' it'.'

It was a very meaningful and precise glare.

'Come on it'll be fun! You know you want to try it. Please?' I sent via an innocent smile and batted eyelashes. Over my life I have developed just the right balance of pathetic sadness and innocence to perfect the Puppy Dog look, even learning to fake cry for the extra push if need be.

'I hate you and your face,' he scowled.

'No you don't. You love me more than you love Bloopard,' I wink, but when he sends a cagey look towards me. Aghast, I amend, 'Wow. I guess I now know where I stand on your care-o-meter; I am below deformed fish level.'

'Not true! You are… on par with Bloopy on the care-o-meter!'

'Gee. Thanks. I am so flattered.'

'Fine! Fine! Above! Way above! Happy?'

'Yes, now to make up for that scathe remark, let us commence with the plan. You thinking what I'm think?'

I then send him my plan through a series of smirks, eyebrow twitching, and subtle head jerks.

'This better work,' was his only response with a vague eye roll.

Finished with our facial expression conversation, we glance around to find everyone staring at us oddly. I realize that, from the outside, it must have looked like an expressive staring contest, but there is no need to look at us like we should be admitted!

"What?" I ask accusingly, looking at the guards faces as they turn away from staring, shaking their heads, carefully so as not to disturb their hats.

I hear the one nearest Donny mutter, "Americans" with disdain. Suddenly, Donny stops and turns to the guard nearest him, his slight lilting accent coming through as he says with animosity, "What'd you say? You got a problem with Americans, bub? I happen to be Scottish-American and I take severe offence to your insult of my American heritage, laddie."

I watch as Donny gets in the guard's personal space and the rest shift to turn their attention to the short, angry Scotsman. Bucky, Clint, and I watch as Donny pushes the guard with his shoulder, since his hands are still occupied with the fish jar, and the man glowers at him. The guard raises his weapon and tries to forcibly push Donny back with it, but Donny doesn't budge much as the man, while taller, is fairly smaller than him in muscle mass.

"Hey! Leave him alone!" I yell and rush towards them as if to aid Donny, but a couple guards grab me to keep us separated. I then begin to use their closeness to my advantage and pretend to thrash about yelling at them to leave us alone and let me go. Bucky and Clint moved as if to rush the guards, but the ones not holding me or aiming at Donny block their path and level their guns on them. I glance to them and shake my head. Thankfully, though confused and probably ready to fight their way through, they back down and still as they watched the events unfold.

After a moment of yelling and skirmishing with the guards, Donny glances at me and I nod discreetly. Objective accomplished. Instantly, he backs down, acting meek and saying, "Okay, okay, I'm done, we're cool. Uncle. No harm done, just her go."

The guards holding me let me go at a nod from the guard with the fanciest and most precariously tall hat who must be their leader. They stared long and hard at Donny and he repeated, "Okay, good, we're cool. Let's just continue back to the cell, yeah?"

Finally, they repositioned themselves in a new arrangement to keep us separate and better guarded, before we started moving onward again.

* * *

We reach the cell we woke up in without further incident and are ushered in without them unlocking out chains. As the guards close the door, I know what is going to happen just by the tick in Bucky's eyebrow. He has been silently seething since the altercation and it looks like we are about to get an earful in 3... 2… 1…

"That was reckless and stupid," Bucky yells seething and glaring mostly at me, "They had guns! You are civilians not soldiers! You could have gotten shot or killed! What were you thinking?!"

"We knew what we were doing," Donny stated calmly as I say, "I prefer the word 'unalived.'"

"You!" Bucky whirls on Don, getting in his face, livid, "You provoked them! You put Reyna in danger and for what?!"

I quickly wedge myself between them, back to Donny, and tell Bucky, "Wow there, Icy-hot, back off. It was my idea; Donny didn't want to do it. Let's all calm down and talk this out."

I hold my hands up and stare Bucky down until he backs away, resigned and not happy, but at least listening.

"On our way back here, " I start, moving my hands into a position to fit the key into one of the holes. "Donny and I planned out something that was foolproof and I asked Donny to create a distraction in order for it to work."

"A distraction that could have gotten you killed," Bucky muttered as one side of my cuffs unlocks and I start on the other.

"Let them finish," Clint says, being, thankfully, a voice of reason.

"So," I say, working at the second lock, it is tighter than the first, "He created an altercation with one of the guards and while everyone was in an uproar, I needed to get closer to one of the guards so I joined in. Mr. and Mr. Tassels who restrained me left themselves open and I-"

"And you nearly got shot. _Again,"_ Bucky says sardonically.

I shoot him a deadpanned look and cross my now freed arms over my chest, stating, "I refuse to have such negativity near me right now, Ice Queen. Remove yourself at once."

Bucky's shocked expression alone was payment enough for almost getting shot. Clint was the first verbally react while Donny merely stood off to the side smugly, at the moment Clint more resembled a codfish than a pigeon as he said, "How did you…?"

"If you would have _let my finish,"_ I shot a meaningful look to Bucky, "I would have told you that I pickpocketed the guards. I got a key, among other things," I hold up the shiny object, "They should really watch their loose items around prisoners."

"What if you had gotten caught?!" Bucky exclaims and I unlock Donny's cuffs.

"Nah guys, it's fine, Rey's a professional. She snatched the shoes off of Steve once."

"I put them back of course, but look at the cool stuff I got!" I pull out a wallet, a pen knife, a small revolver that looked like it came from an old western movie, a bigger pistol, a key card to unlock and open the door, and a fancy hat that one of the guards had worn which I had hidden behind my back and nabbed from the last guard as my friends had their backs turned. "It's all in the sleight of hand and misdirection. Throw in some good old confusion and noise and you have yourself a perfect opportunity to swipe anything you want."

"Cool trick, but I would never fall for something like that," Clint says haughtily.

"Oh no?" I smirk and hold up his belt.

Finally, the icy mask Bucky was wearing broke as he smiled widely, pointing at Clint and saying, "Ha!"

He then turned to me and smirked, "So you're not just a pretty face."

I lean on his left side and say dramatically, "You wound me with your presumptuousness, Frostbite," I trace a pattern on his shoulder and looking up at him through my lashes, distracting him, "I'll have you know I have a multitude of talents besides a pretty face, though that helps too."

"I'm sure you do," he says, with a sly smile, "but, unlike some people," he glances at Clint, "I have too good of senses to let a pickpocket, even a cute one, nick anything away from me."

I lean in with a sly smile of my own, saying, "I'm sure you do," before winking at him and slinking back a couple steps. Hearing a chuckle from beside us, we turn to see Donny doing the cool anime guy glasses thing while smirking.

"I fear you have spoken prematurely, Barnes," He says.

"What are you-" he starts but then stops and gives me one of the driest looks I have ever received.

"Buck, I would hate for you to be _disarmed,"_ I tell him, in mock sincerity.

"Reyna," his voice is calm, but his eyes say murder.

"But you've got to _hand_ it to me."

"Reyna."

"I really _left_ you in the dark."

"Rey."

"Yes, sugar?"

"Give my arm back."

I send him a smile and hand the detached, metal arm back to the disgruntled ex-assassin.

* * *

So to skip a few boring minutes of escaping the cell and finding out that the compound is surprisingly well guarded, we are squished and hiding in a hallway cleaning supplies closet, which smells like a _lovely_ combination of hospital disinfectant and a gym locker, while planning out our next move.

Bloopy is balance on top of Donny's head as we all huddle over the map of the compound we made together from what we remember while traveling back to the cell comprised of baking soda lines for the walls, cotton balls for the guards, two kazoos for Floyd and Frank, and drawn on latex gloves that are blown up like balloons for us. Mine has the stereotypical sharpied turkey on it; Clint's is a pigeon whom he has named Mini Me and set atop a pile of left over bird seed which somehow still hasn't run out; Donny's is a pied crow which he decided on after a long, drawn out, completely necessary discussion about their superior problem solving abilities; Bucky's is a peacock. He wanted to be a snowy owl, claiming because they are silent and are associated with winter it would fit his persona better, but, since I was the artist and therefore reserve the right of artistic license, he didn't get a say in the matter. I did however add some dark smudges around it eyes, per request.

So we are huddled around the map, trying out best not to blow away the baking soda or topple Bloopy and planning an escape route.

"Here's what we know," Clint says around a mouthful of birdseed, moving the balloon bird us to the location of the supply closet we are in, "We are here, and to get to the main area we have to go through this series of hallways," here he sprinkles a line of birdseed between the two locations, "While being guided back to the cell, Bucky and I noticed a surveillance room here. It did not look guarded, but we have to assume that there is at least one armed guard," He sets corn fritter in the room, "inside watching the monitors. If we can make it to this room, we should have access to video feeds all across the compound and can formulate an escape from there. The only question is how to get from here to there past a multitude of guards undetected."

"Why can't we just, I don't know, rush through the guards to get to the exit?" I ask, moving the gloves to shove past the cotton balls. "We have guns and you guys have the skills."

"Usually I would say to just barrel through," Bucky replies, taking the gloves and setting the cotton balls back up, now giving them sharp toothpicks, "But, even though we have guns, absolute best case and completely improbable scenario? We make it through and escape."

"I like this plan," I nod.

He holds up a finger to stop my train of thought, a Winter Soldier glint returns to his eyes and I can see his preservation and survival skills kicking in, "Yes, but as I said, completely improbably. Now worst case scenario?"

He takes the guards and pops our glove stand-ins without mercy. I shake my head now and say, "I do not like this plan."

"Agreed," he says. "There are too many with too many guns to take on without chance of injury or death. They may want to use us, but that does not mean that any of us are not disposable. We need a stealthier option. Unfortunately, they are not as idiotic as their uniforms."

There are reluctant sounds of acknowledgement hear from all around and Donny says, "So what we need is a way to get from here to there without being seen. Someplace they would not think to look when they realize that we aren't in the cell anymore. Someplace hidden and out of the way…"

When no one voices any suggestions, Clint looks around, smiles when he spots what he was looking for, and speaks up, saying, "Well… There's always _my_ way."

He points up and we look to see a large air duct opening directly above us, big enough to allow a fully grown man to crawl through with space to spare. Well, that is a major design flaw for a terrorist organization's base.

We destroy the map we had created, hiding the evidence of ever creating one, after figuring out a gameplay as to how to get there and manage to open a folding chair between us to stand on to get up to the vent. Bucky climbs on top of the chair and manages to flip the switch on the grate cover the vent to swing it open before hoisting himself up.

Looking down at us, he asks, "Reyrey, you want to lead?"

I wave my hands at him and shake my head, "No way, I would get us lost."

"It's true," Donny adds, "She's called in late to work from Yonkers before _because?"_

I look down glumly, "I fell asleep on the bus."

His pointed, probing stare made me add, "The wrong bus." His stare hardened a little. "Because I went to the wrong bus station." More staring. "Because I was trying to find my back from Queens." Intense staring. "Because I was lost."

"Yes, because you were lost. Twice!" He holds up two fingers.

"I'm sorry okay?! I took the wrong turn!" I defend, frowning. Weakly.

"The bus station to work is two blocks away from where you live!" Donny exclaimed while also trying to keep quiet to keep from being noticed by any passing guards.

"I am directionally challenged! It is a real condition!" I shout.

"You go the same way to work _every day!"_

"I have a reasonable excuse!"

"Oh really? Then what it is?!"

By now I am yelling, "I THOUGHT I SAW THE DOCTOR!"

He freezes from the retort he had coming before he calms down and then nods his head from side to side before saying, "Fair enough."

"Stop arguing," Bucky calls sternly from above us, "Someone's coming. Get up here quickly, I don't care what order. I'll lead."

Clint jumps up into the side Bucky isn't on and scoots back, taking Bloopy from Donny before pulling him up. Finally Bucky pulls me up and I end up in front of Donny as he and Clint moved back some more and Bucky closes the grate.

We all freeze. From my vantage point, I can see the locked doorknob to the supply closet jiggle as someone tries to open the door. It stops for a moment only to have a key inserted and the door unlocked. A single guard cautiously pokes his head in, gun ready in his hand as he surveys the small, cramped room.

He seemed confused, probably because he knew he heard something from this closet. If he sees us it will be my fault for yelling and arguing with Donny. Oh my gosh! If he sees me he'll capture Donny too! And Bucky and Clint! Ugh! I am so stupid and senseless sometimes!

We all hold our breaths as he takes one last, thorough look around. He starts to look up and I feel my breath catch and my stomach drop.

 _If he takes a good look up into the vent, he'll see me for sure._

* * *

And that is where I am leaving it this chapter. Yes I know "Another cliffhanger! Come on! Get it together! You are a terrible person! I thought this would be the last chapter of this part of the story!"Well, I apologize. Sincerely. From the depths of my dark little heart. I plan on uploading an ending chapter very soon, it is just that this one was getting so long that I wanted to break it up. Also for those who read the author's notes part of the story, here is a little heads up: I am working on a fluffy Jayna, you know James Barnes x Reyna, chapter which I will post soon as well. It won't be extremely long, at least it doesn't look that way yet, but that could change. I don't know what all of your feelings are on my little ship, because this story actually didn't start out as a BuckyxOC story, but things changed and I started liking the ship more. Any feelings or comments on this?

As always, thank you for reading my hopefully funny story and please comment any ideas or thoughts below! Trust me I need all the hep I can get. ^-^ Thanks again!

-Introvertasaurus out.


	12. Captured: The Finale

**Hey everyone, Introvertasaurus here with my amazing friend and co-conspirator/writer/Dark Knight!**

 ** _Heellooo! It is I! Catmandu22! I assist in the penning of utter nonsense that we create, and attempt to make it somewhat cohesive. Key word: attempt._**

 **Hey! I resent that!**

 ** _You shouldn't. You know I'm right._**

 **Rude. (Also very true) Anyway, I for one want to apologize again for the complete lack of the concept of time management on my part. Gomenasai! I also want to say sorry in advance for emotionally torturing you poor readers even more during this chapter. (Just kidding I apologize for nothing!)**

 **So anywho, ON WITH THE STORY!**

* * *

We all hold our breath as the guard below us takes in the small room, quickly making his way upward to the vent where we are all perched like literal sitting ducks. I make eye contact with Donny and we share a worried, quiet conversation which basically translated to me asking, 'Do you have a meat cleaver?' and him sending me an aghast look that meant 'Do I LOOK like I have a meat cleaver? On second thought do I want to know why you want a murder knife?' To which I replied with a smile, and he sends a wary '...Never mind.'

With no silent weapon around to... unalive the guard, I flounder for options. Looking around, all I see is four cramped, huddling people about to be caught and probably tortured for information or used as a weapon against the innocents. I looked at each of them, trying to figure out what to do when something shiny caught my eye. I stared at the object with a large smile growing on my face. I looked to Bucky and, pointing at the object of my attention, I mouth in the dim light "Give it to me."

He returned my gaze, confusedly mouthing back, "What?"

Not wanting to repeat myself, I reached forward and grabbed it, not without a large amount of struggle from Bucky. Donny tried to grab my arm to stop me, but I shrugged him off of my shoulder to peer through the grate again. The amount of movement we had been making had drawn the attention of the guard below us. He was now standing almost directly under the vent, trying to discern the source of the sound. By the look of the hand on his gun he was probably expecting one of the ROUSs from The Princess Bride to jump him at any moment. With a large grin I silently opened the grate and leaped from the vent, swinging my weapon of choice with wild abandon at the guard's head as I fell.

My weapon of choice being Bucky's iconic metal arm, which he begrudgingly gave to me and by begrudgingly I mean I shamelessly stole it.

It only took one swift hit to the guards head to render him unconscious with a solid 'WHACK.' With a large grin on my face I waved Bucky's arm at my comrades in the vent, "Clear!"

"Great," Bucky said dryly, peering down at me. "Now get your butt up here and give that back."

"Okay, but I may-" I start, but was cut off by him.

"Don't you dare say it," he says with narrowed eyes, though I could tell he was trying to keep a smile off his face.

"-Need a hand," I finish and I could hear Clint from inside the vent groan and hit his head on the side of the vent.

We all end up piling back in to the duct with Bucky leading, as before, then me, then Donny, and finally Clint made up the caboose.

Speaking of cabooses...

"You sure you didn't want to go first Rey?" Bucky asks from in front of me, shaking me back into reality. "It can get pretty claustrophobic being sandwiched between people,"

"Nope, I would only get us lost. I'm good right here," I state, and, though it does feel a little cramped, my mind is on… other things. Like the view.

Even in dark ventilation shafts, there are bright sides.

And fine sides.

Contemplating one of the very fine sides of life, I think to myself, "No wonder they call him the Asset."

Behind me, Donny cries out, "Oh my gosh! Reyna, filter! _Please?"_

"Among other reasons," Bucky says to me, turning his head to wink at me as he chuckles.

I freeze for a moment as blood drains from my face in horror before coming back ten fold as realization sets in, "Did I just say that our loud?"

Bucky's frame shakes with mirth as he laughs louder before turning around to move on, saying, "Yes, yes you did."

"Oh. Oops." If my cheeks are red it's because of the heat building up in the vent from four bodies in a small space, absolutely nothing else.

There is silence for a while, well as silent as four people crawling through an air duct can be, and I could almost swear that Bucky still his a stupid smile on his face from laughing at me. Not being one for lingering awkward moments, I look back at Donny and say, "This reminds me of Mission Impossible."

He chuckles and replies, "same."

After a moment of collective shuffling, Clint exclaims, "Dang it! Now you have the song stuck in my head!"

Grinning evilly I glance at Donny again and start lowly singing the theme song. Donny smirks as well and joins at the high parts using his falsetto and our melody grows.

As it turns out we are a very musically inclined bunch.

It was glorious and I shall always treasure the moment, but it was disturbed by Bucky as he states over our awesome acapella moment, "I hope you all know that I do not understand that reference and how it is relevant to sing it inside an air duct while trying to infiltrate an enemy base."

Shocked, I grab his ankle to stop him and once he turns toward me I ask, "You seriously have never seen any of the Impossible Missions?"

He turned to sit towards me before seeming to rack his brain for anything related to the subject. After a moment he shakes his head with a wry smile and says, "No, can't say that I have. Sorry."

"That's it, when we get back, we are having a movie catch up night," I tell him. "I'm talking all the classics, the Impossible Missions, Lord of the Rings, Gladiator, High School Musical, I even have a DVD of Steve's show girl days where he punches Hitler in the face."

"Oh do you now?" That last must have one caught his attention as his smile grew a little sadistic and far off. "We should invite Steve to watch them with us, so he can fill us in on his stardom during the war."

"Agreed," I smile.

We make it to the surveillance room and tie up the lone, rather bored guard with littered computer cables we found on the ground, and gag him with the extra napkins I kept in my pocket. Napkins are always handy, I'm constantly trying to convince Donny of this fact and this just proved my point, plus they really helped with cleaning up the greasy corn fritters. And then Donny gets to work on the computers.

"When is this technology from?! The 1930's?!" Donny cries out in distress, pulling at his hair. Then he looks to Bucky and says, calmer, "No offence."

"None taken," Buck says back, "I'm pretty sure they had better systems in Russia during the war."

"Calm down Neo, it can't be that ba-" I freeze to take a better look at the screen and gasp in horror, understanding now what has Donny so upset. I speak in a low, serious tone, "Standard rolling, green grass landscape with blue sky. Overly large desktop icons. The only web browser is Internet Explorer…" I gasp, "I know what you are!"

"Say it," Donny whispers forlornly.

"Windows XP!" I shriek, recoiling away from the vile dinosaur.

"Those barbarians!" Donny roars, "How is this system even able to still operate the internet? All those updates they missed. All those beautiful enhancements! Wasted! Have they no dignity for the improved? Those-those… Villains!" By now Donny is nearly shedding manly tears of grief and I place a hand on his shoulder to console him. He places a hand on mine and grips it tightly and Bucky and Clint stand by awkwardly and the guard rolls his eyes from his bound position as we share a moment as Donny takes a deep breath. He then sniffs back the sentiment and righting himself, back into hacker mode.

"Can you do it, Hacker-sensei?" I ask him.

"Did I or didn't I in an hour, allegedly, encrypt all of the Charlie the Unicorn videos into the Director of SHIELD's personal 'secret' archive using only a Gameboy and a glue gun?" He asks smugly, getting into his coding mood.

"That was you?! Man, Fury was ticked for weeks-probably still is-and had sworn vengeance on the hacker! He was out for blood. Fired every Charlie in the employee roster," Clint rambled excitedly.

"I bet he was… _Fury-_ ous," I say. Everyone either groans or chuckles at the terrible pun.

"That was so cheesy it was funny, but seriously Donovan was the one who, what do you call it now, _trolled_ Fury?" Bucky asks.

"I can neither confirm nor deny anything," I state automatically, then to Donny I say, "I can also neither confirm nor deny you making me sign a legal paper stating that I can neither confirm nor deny that you did that, which was or was not later burned. Though I can confirm that it would have gone faster if you didn't insist on doing it blindfolded."

"Where's the fun in that?" Donny grins.

"Your idea of fun and my idea of fun are vastly different," Hawkeye mutters.

"Whatever you say, Bird Seed," I snark.

He mutters something about "No good, sassy pickpockets with no respect for their elders," but I am too busy watching Donny maneuver his way through the HYDRA system like a hot knife through butter to care.

Five minutes later, we were in. That is, eleven seconds of code and four minutes forty-nine seconds of waiting for the dad-blasted thing to load, and we are in. So many toys to play with! Well if you can call weapons of mass destruction toys-which I totally can!

Donny speed read through some of the data he pulled up with Bucky, Clint, and I looking over his shoulders, catching bits here and there of all the intel Hydra had been able to record. Being an adept speed reader as well, I catch most of what was written and none of it is good. American military base locations, weapons stocks, new biological weapon formulas, something on recent studies on the super soldier formula by- Donny scrolled by too fast for me to read the author.

"We should bring this data with us," Donny says grimly, knowing the importance of information and the dangers of it being leaked to the enemy. Possession of said information can mean the downfall of an organization, which is not necessarily a bad thing in this case. "Luckily I always bring a spare thumb drive with me."

"Where?" I ask, knowing that they probably searched us before throwing us into the cell when we got here, but before he could answer, Clint speaks from behind the computer where he was inspecting the setup.

"Guys... I hate to tell you this but... There are no USB ports. There are however... ports for floppy disks... The five inch ones..." Clint states, looking over the monitor.

All was quiet for a moment before Donny exploded, "Do you know how many five and a quarter inch floppy disks you would need to hold one Gigabyte of data?! At least 6,553!"

"Ummm... Yeeeeaaaah..." Bucky started, cautiously, leaning around the desk to look where Clint was, "Yeah that's... about right actually. At least."

We all look with him to the shadowed area behind the desk and see an ocean sized pile of floppy disks mounded and 'hidden' under a rug, which, while very decorative with many, many tassels, completely threw off the entire ambiance of the room. I mean that rug with those walls? Nu-uh.

Some disks had sloppy handwriting on them, others had what looked like children's drawings and archaic symbols, and the rest looked like they lost a glitter war.

"That's not kosher for the insert slot," Donny deadpanned, cringing. "I knew it was running slower than even XP should; they literally infected the computer with the herpes of the arts and crafts world."

"How many do you need to copy the files?" Clint asks, looking worried.

Donny checks something on the computer and five minutes of excruciating loading later, he says, "two hundred and fourth three blank... and about six days."

Everyone groans and slumps down wherever they were at: Donny banging his head against the keyboard and accidentally opening arcade table program while scoring a perfect game, me collapsing into a spinny chair and start turning from side to side, Bucky and Clint falling into the glitter infested floppy disk mountain and showering the whole room in a rain of shiny flecks.

I groan loudly and throw an arm over my face to keep the glitter from getting into my mouth or airways and causing me to die a fabulous death. Muffled, I think out loud saying, " why can't we just bring the hard drive with us instead? That would be so much easier."

"Reyna," Donny suddenly says.

"Yes?" I ask, peeking out from under my sparkle encrusted arm.

"Have I ever told you that you are a genius?"

"Yes, when I told you that a pudding lid can be used as a scoop if you forget your spoon. And when I said that it's okay to eat cake every day because it's always your unbirthday. And-"

"Yes, okay, I don't need the play by play, but this time you are even more of a genius than you are most of the time. Reyna." He looks seriously into my eyes. "I love you."

"Aww, thank you! Love you too, beau,"

"Let's get to work," he said and we all separated to different screens while he deconstructed the computer and removed the hard drive.

On the screen of the computer I chose are lists of surveillance satellites as well as the locations of a lot of Hydra's nuclear weapons. I highlight all of them and key in a few commands. After a few code screens, and security questions (Favorite animal? Octopus. Words whispered between friends? Hail HYDRA. Etc.) and a new screen pops up.

ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE ALL NUCLEAR MISSILES INTO SPACE?

[CONFIRM] [CANCEL]

I literally punch the confirm button in the face like a boss and then wait.

After a while I don't hear anything. Nothing that would indicate that massive explosions were happening. Just a little screen that says 'Operation Confirmed.' What a letdown. I frown. Bucky rolls over in the only non-tasseled office chair in the room and bumps my own chair with it.

"What's got you so glum? We are literally destroying an entire organization here, I thought you would be ecstatic."

I grumbled, "It didn't go BOOM." I continued pouting as Bucky chuckled at me. "I was expecting at least _something_ after knocking out all of their satellites with their own nukes."

"We can watch it on the news later," He replies and Donny starts speaking before I can say anything.

"Okay, that should do it. I know we don't have time to stick around so I set it to auto. If everyone is done, we can leave. I also got a map of the duct system and found an escape route with my free time," Donny says after finishing up on the computer with the speed of the best black hat hacker in or, in this case out of, the business.

So we leave the guard tied up, now unconscious and, yet again, pile back into the cramped vent to make our way outside.

* * *

*Meanwhile Back At The Helicarrier*

Tony and Steve have been working tirelessly trying to find the four. They are tired and Tony is cranky and sarcastic, but truthfully that had little to do with the missing four so much as his personality. He was just often cranky and sarcastic. On the inside however, he felt like the uncle who was in charge of watching his niece and nephew and allowed them to be kidnapped: useless and self-loathing.

Steve is sitting in a rolling chair watching a never changing screen, feeling quite useless as Tony scoured the internet in search of their missing quartet. So he did what any good soldier would do: he spun around in his chair until he could be of use. Suddenly, something catches his eye in the midst of his spinning "Tony, there's something here," Steve calls to the frantic man from across the room.

Tony groans exasperatedly and replies dryly, "That, you beefy war relic, is called a computer. We use those to look up dumb questions and watch cat videos."

"I know what a computer is, it's something ON the computer. Just come here and see," Steve sighs, feeling quite offended.

Tony grunts as he gets up and says, "I'm coming I'm coming, calm your arthritis."

Just as he was nearing where Steve was seated, hunched over one of the defense computers Tony had put him at to keep him out from under foot, the power blinked and the helicarrier jarred to a halt. When the power came back after a few seconds, the screen was blank except for a small pixelated, animated, green ghost-like character with a text box that read: SHALL WE PLAY A GAME? -EXOVAN

Tony took control of the screen and pushed Steve's chair away, sending the man spinning across the room to get better access. He quickly typed a message, muttering to himself as he typed, "Who is this? Why are you using my coffee maker's handle? I don't have time to deal with you right now. Go bother Pym or something."

A message popped up moments after he sent his saying, SORRY BUT I AM IN A HURRY AS WELL. HAVE A NICE FLIGHT.

With that, the helicarrier lurched as it started moving the completely opposite direction that they were going in to begin with.

"Tony, what's happening? Do something to fix this!" Steve stouts from where he was sent spinning again by the sudden halt and reverse.

"I'm trying!" he replied, fingers a blur as he typed code string after code string trying to fix the problem, but to seemingly no avail. There seemed to be no chink in the armor of the virus Exovan had infected the ship with, not even a pin hole.

For ten minutes solid, Tony typed code into the computer to find something, anything to get past the shields the hacker had used. Finally, he found a germ sized back door that would have gone completely hidden to anyone else. Tony was trying his hardest to inch his way through that hole when all of a sudden the screen went black as the power flickered.

It stayed that way for what was probably a few hours, none of the electronic on the ship worked, not even Tony's watch, which held Jarvis.

After a time, the Helicarrier, for the second time, lurched to a complete stop, jarring everyone and throwing anyone who was not sitting or holding onto a rail to the floor, and sends Steve spinning and rolling in yet another direction. This time though it stayed put and didn't move. The computers came back online, but none of the buttons or touchscreens worked for anything, the air craft controls or even a game of Galaga.

"Jarvis? What's happening?" Tony inquired.

A reply came, not from Jarvis, but rather a stereotypical female navigation system's voice from every speaker in the ship, "You have reached your destination.

They both looked to a screen that held the map of where they where located.

They right smack dab in the middle of Siberia hovering over an abandoned military base.

The computer screen lit up again with the words: THANK YOU FOR TRAVELING EXOVAN AIR, WE HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR RESCUE MISSION AND PLAN TO TRAVEL WITH US AGAIN.

Tony looks to his left for Steve, only to find him far across the room, looking fairly dizzy, "Cap. I think we found them."

* * *

We crawled through the vent in more or less complete silence, until Bucky came to a halt in front of me. I collided with his asset - I mean rear-I mean fine- him I collided with _him_ (not that I'm complaining), and stop the rest of us from moving. We pause for a second until we hear a loud creaking noise. I heard Bucky whisper, "Don't. Move."

Then the vent broke.

We all tumbled down from the ceiling onto a table in the center of a long room. Men who I didn't know filled the table, with _Frank_ sitting next to Floyd, who was standing at the head of the table. He wore an angry expression, "What. Are. You. DOING HERE?"

I shot him a shaky smile, "Uh, surprise?"

Floyd groaned exasperatedly and yelled, "Frank! Grab the girl!"

Bucky immediately pulled my body behind his, as he stood, "Don't you touch her."

Floyd pulled the gun out from off his hip, cocking it and aiming it at Bucky, "I need you alive Asset, but if your arm is evidence of anything, it's that I don't need you in one piece."

Bucky didn't move, and when I caught glimpse of his eyes I saw that darkness present there once more. It scared me more than the table full of bad guys surrounding us ever could. He spoke, his voice cold, "I won't say it twice."

Floyd responded, his voice annoyed and tired of this situation, "Nor will I." Just then, his arm and gaze moved as he aimed at Clint.

The world slowed and I saw the bullet crawling through the air towards Clint before the trigger was even pulled. Spurred by instinct, I was moving, leaping from my position behind Bucky. Now more than ever I am glad for my superior speed as I shoving Clint out of the way as someone shouted, "No!"

Clint tumbled off the table, his face confused as he made eye contact with me. I watched as his whole face paled and he stared at my side. I looked down and saw a red stain spreading from my side. All of a sudden I felt a sharp pain in my side, and I heard the same person who had just shouted start screaming. It was shrill and loud. I tried to think about who it could have been and it dawned on me: It was me.

I was screaming.

I was bleeding.

I was shot.

The world began moving in normal time again, and I touched my side where the pain was located. My hand returned to my line of sight with blood coating my fingers. My vision began to blur and I felt myself falling. The only coherent thing I remember thinking as I fell was this:

 _So that's what it's like to get shot._

* * *

 **Ok well I think we can all agree that this chapter was quite intense. You can thank me for the snippy one liners.**

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